Rugby and Art Deco

Words that rarely go together.   But those are the influences that shaped our week.

Friday night found us boarding the waterfront shuttle to join 30,000 others for the U.S. vs. Australia game, which was part of the Rugby World Cup.  Though the U.S. Eagles apparently have a lot to learn about rugby, we thoroughly enjoyed the singing and the cheering and the trash-talking accompanying the event.  A number of Kiwis were cheering for the Americans too, since the Wallabies are their big rivals and their predicted opponents for the final when all is said and done.  The U.S. team did score one "try" for five points, but they were quickly overwhelmed and outclassed.  Almost against our will, we are beginning to pull for the All-Blacks.  It's contagious.

Saturday morning we headed out towards Hawke's Bay on our first trip of any length outside Wellington environs.  After passing through beautiful hills and tiny towns we were on the edge of the Manawatu Gorge in rain and deep green.  Unfortunately, the Gorge was closed due to a "slip" (landslide) and we found ourselves in kind of a "no way to get there from here" situation, befuddling our GPS, which then tried to send us all the way back to Wellington.  A bit frustrated after circling a while, we crossed a narrow one-line bridge to seek respite at the aptly- named Across the Bridge Cafe, which offered hearty vegetable soup and venison burgers and gave us time to re-think.  Found another route and finally made it into Hastings, a lovely town near the gannet colony at Cape Kidnappers and home to our friends, the Dansies, when they lived here.  At the NZ Olive Festival, held at the racetrack, we scored some locally-grown olives and lavender/rosemary soap and pondered what it might be like to take the apprentice-jockey lessons offered there.  The other apprenticeship on offer was one in fruit propagation.  Hawke's Bay is one of the areas known for winemaking but is also considered the Fruit Bowl of NZ, where most of the berries and other fruits are grown in summer.

With our purchases in tow, we drove just a little further to the coastal resort of Napier.  There was a wide beach with volcanic black sand, and we found Napier to be a treasure trove of art deco beauty.  The town was rebuilt  after a significant earthquake in the 1930's. The picture above is the esplanade.  Spring flowers were blooming, and the air smelled sweet.  We took a long walk to see what was open.  It was pre-season in a beach town, a little deserted on a cool Friday night.  We had dinner at a restaurant called Mint, and I had my first taste of paua (abalone).  One of John's co-workers had said it tasted "a little like licorice and a little like dirt," not a bad description.  But  with a few pieces in a dish of greens with bacon, I liked it pretty well.

The next morning we visited the national aquarium.  Highlights included pregnant male seahorses who looked as if they might burst with eggs and a walk through a tunnel of water with fish and sharks all around.  On offer was a chance to swim with sharks, but we declined.  Probably the real highlight for us was a chance to see the kiwi.  They are nocturnal and notoriously shy, and the ones in the exhibit were sleeping when we'd walked through. Things were a little slow first thing in the morning though, and the fellow at reception said he was going to feed them and that we could come with.  He turned down the lights and mixed up their maggot mush (He reports that the maggots taste like peanut butter.), and sure as the world, both male and female emerged and ran from bush to bush in the enclosure with their characteristic funny gait.  One of them allowed him to pet it as we watched.  Wow.

Next we shopped at Opossum World and looked at many beautiful objects we could not afford in the art deco galleries and shops.  The earthquake museum was closed, and we didn't have time to do justice to the honeybee farm or the Silky Oak Chocolate Factory, so we'll have to save that for another trip.  After our experience with the gorge, we decided to return through the Wairapa (Lord of the Rings country--high green hills rising between flat fields full of sheep and cows, with the occasional stand of evergreens) through tiny towns with unlikely names like Dannevirke (Viking signs with Norse greetings) as we watched the temperature drop from 18 to 6 degrees C.  It was pretty calm till we reached the Rimutaka Ridge with hairpin curves reminiscent of W.Va. pre-turnpike.  Yikes.

Finally, we were glad to be back "home" in Wellington, walking up a huge hill to have dinner with our new friend, Mary who has just moved back to Wellington after 45 years in the U.S. (Columbia Univ.)  Her townhouse has a commanding view of Wellington city, and she had made a pavlova (kind of a meringue cake that is the national dessert) with kiwi fruit.  A perfect ending to a weekend in New Zealand.