Rotorua to Wellington

We got up, packed and checked out. We weren’t sure which route to Wellington would be best. One goes inland for a while, then goes down near the Western shore. The other is longer, may not be as big a road, and goes to the East coast at Napier and then back inland. Paul, our host in Rotorua, strongly recommended the route through Napier so we chose it.

We drove to Taupo for breakfast. Taupo is on Lake Taupo, and we could see beautiful, snow-capped mountains across the huge lake. The wind off the lake was very cold.

South of Taupo we took a cutoff that was simply marked “Scenic overlook.” It went a surprising way off the road and dead-ended above a lovely waterfall out in the middle of nowhere.

We drove on to Napier. Napier shows up as a nifty place in the guidebooks because it is on a bay facing the Pacific Ocean, and because it was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s and rebuilt all at once in Art Deco style. We walked along the bayfront, which has a nicely tended park.

Napier is a tourist town, and every Art Deco façade covers some sort of tourist peddling activity. I did talk to a very nice man in a craft co-op who turns beautiful wooden bowls and sells them at reasonable prices. Since I have done a bit of turning we talked technique and tools; I think he appreciated talking to someone who understood a bit of his craft. Also lunch was good. But that was about it for us and Napier. 1930’s Art Deco city buildings hold our attention for maybe 20 minutes on a good day. But some folks really crave its ice cream.
We left Napier and drove to Auckland, stopping for a flat white in Carterton, a small town that somehow has a nifty, atmospheric wine bar with a hammered copper espresso machine. Since it was the only place in town that was open at that time (we walked by three cafes, all closed, before we found this one), we were particularly grateful the coffee was delicious.

And then on to Wellington. To get to Wellington from Upper Hutt we had to drive about 20 K of very sharply curved, windy road that is cut into the mountains between Wellington and the East coast. The cut was almost vertical, the shoulder was no more than a foot wide, and the other side of the road was a sheer drop off. The road switched back and forth, sometimes almost doubling over on itself. It was really fun to drive, and would have been particularly excellent on a motorcycle.

We found our way to our hotel without trouble. Again Miriam picked a good one. No view, but the weather is crummy so that doesn’t matter. It has a big living area, a separate bedroom, is quite clean, airy and reasonably priced, and is located just a block from good restaurants and shopping.

We ate at an Indian restaurant that got high ratings in the Lonely Planet; the food was delicious. We watched a bit of TV and crashed.