Napier

On Monday, we arrived in the port town of Napier. Staying on the east coast of the North Island, Napier is about half way up the coast. Napier is a beach town, with lots of beaches along its coast, and has a very tropical vibe with lots of palm trees. 

Napier is known as an Art Deco City due to having the world’s largest concentration of art deco architecture. Napier apparently suffered a huge, life-changing earthquake of its own – apart from the one in Christchurch and Wellington. The whole country is earthquake prone due to its being built on volcanic land. This Napier earthquake, which took place in 1931, remains New Zealand’s deadliest natural disaster. It was a magnitude of 7.8 and lasted for 2½ minutes. When the city of Napier had to rebuild after the devastating quake, they decided to use predominantly art deco architecture. The art deco homes have flat roofs. 

It took 3 engineers 3 years to rebuild the city. Compare that with Christchurch, where they are still rebuilding from the 2010 earthquake. I guess there was less bureaucracy back in 1931. They are predicting a 9.0 earthquake within the next 50 years.

Our bus driver/tour guide’s name was Len (pronounced Leen). He informed us that New Zealand is slightly larger than the size of England, and while the population of England is 56.5 million, the population of New Zealand is only 5.2 million. Len said that New Zealand is like one big farm. There are so many crops grown here – almost anything and everything. In fact, Len thought it was easier to tell us what is not grown in New Zealand: bananas and pineapple. Almost everything else is grown here. Len said that they are ranked #12 globally for the quality of food and wine.

Len said New Zealand is a country without much history, as the country is relatively young. The date of 1840 is generally used as the founding date. He repeated what a previous tour guide had told us about the three official languages of New Zealand: Māori, English, and sign language. He said he doesn’t know much Māori, is well-versed in English, and how much sign language he uses depends on the amount of traffic issues he encounters.

Because New Zealand sits on volcanic land, the soil is very rich, which is why New Zealand is so prosperous in horticulture, agriculture, and viniculture. All farms, orchards, and vineyards are family owned, no corporate ownership. New Zealand gets 36 inches of annual rainfall. They irrigate the farmland, but the irrigation method is unusual. They do use some of the big familiar irrigation machinery, but the farmland sits on a huge aquifer (underground water) and they dig wells into the aquifer and use the drip irrigation method. Now if you’re like me, you have no idea what the drip irrigation method is. And maybe you don’t care, but I’m going to tell you anyway – for those who do care. So if you don’t care, you can skip down to the next paragraph. FYI – This explanation came from google: Drip irrigation is a low-flow watering method using tubes that run on or underneath the soil. Drip emitters then release the water close to the roots of the plants. The slow application rate and direct delivery of drip irrigation prevent runoff, making it a very water-efficient irrigation method. So there you have it!

Okay, now back to less academic blogging. As mentioned, there is lots of farming in New Zealand, and especially in the Napier area. Since Napier has a Mediterranean climate, it makes for fruitful growth, and in fact, Napier is called the fruit bowl. The area is known for Chardonnay wine and Merlots. In addition to produce and wine, there is a big timber industry. The timber is taken from trees that grow on the hillsides that are not good for farming. Most of the timber is exported to China, Japan, and Korea.

Len said that Napier is a clean city, with no graffiti. Instead of graffiti, they draw artwork on the sides of the buildings. We saw this in Christchurch where they considered the city to be an open air museum, and we’ve seen it in other cities such as Wellington. I guess it’s a thing in most of New Zealand.

Land is very expensive due to its valuable soil. Len said that it sells for $2 million dollars an acre. The average price of homes is $868,000. No one can own land or a home except for native New Zealanders. They've seen foreigners come in and buy large chunks of land in Australia, and decided to take measures to prevent foreign ownership in New Zealand. Also, if you own land, you do not own the trees on the land. You are not allowed to trim or cut down the trees on your own property.

We passed by a very prestigious golf course, where according to Len, Tiger Woods plays frequently.

We passed by Cape Kidnappers. Apparently James Cook was traveling with a child from Tahiti. When he came to New Zealand, the Maori thought he had taken one of their children, so they took and claimed him as their own. James Cook had to go to great length to convince them that the child was not Maori, but Tahitian. Because of this incident, Cook named the area Cape Kidnappers.

The land here is very oil and mineral rich, and there is an active gold mine. However, they no longer drill for oil or mine the ores, and plan to shut down the gold mine soon, to protect the environment.

We passed by some apple orchards. There were some shiny, white strips of cloth lying on the ground underneath the trees. Len explained the purpose of the white cloths. The sun reflects off the cloth and colors the underside of the apple. Apples must have 75% color to be able to ship them. Also, they grow the fruit according to the country that it will be shipped to. For example, in the U.S., we are accustomed to baseball size apples, so when the apples reach that size, they harvest them. Then they let other apples grow larger and ship them to countries that prefer large apples. Len said that you can put apples in the freezer, and they will keep for 6 months. When you take it out after 6 months, it will taste as fresh as the day you bought it.

After driving around the city of Napier and some of the countryside, with Len giving us all this interesting information about the area, we ended up in a little town called Havelock North. On the corner of the town was what Len called the American Embassy. When we were surprised that the American Embassy would be located in the tiny village of Havelock North, NZ, we realized that Len was talking about the local McDonald’s located on the corner. 

The American Embassy?

We went into town and had a half hour to walk around the town and visit some boutiques, book stores, and coffee shops. I spent about 20 of the 30 minutes waiting in line to use the public bathroom. There were 2 public bathrooms and 2 busloads of tourists.

Havelock North

We made one more stop – at a place called Arataki Honey. As implied in the name, they make honey here. There were some bees in the back of the shop. Unfortunately we were told that we couldn’t buy honey and take it with us to the next town. They are very particular about biosecurity in New Zealand. They did have a very nice gift shop where I made a few purchases, including a nice New Zealand t-shirt for $8 US. The exchange rate is really good, about .55. So you will pay a little more than half of the New Zealand price in US dollars. By the way, New Zealand currency is called New Zealand dollars, but is also informally called the kiwi or kiwi dollar.

Bees

On the way back to the ship we drove through the Tuki Tuki Valley, where we saw some nice scenery.

Our bus driver Len was a colorful character. He left us with some of his sayings:

There are sheep who want to be people and people who act like sheep.

Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.

And my personal favorite: You can lead a brain to knowledge but you can’t make it think.