New Zealand: Part 1

To "Middle Earth" we went. There were eight of us: five adults and three children. A two year old, a four year old and an 8 month old. It took us four planes to get from Baltimore to Napier, New Zealand, but it was worth it. I could hardly sleep...not because I had to sleep on a plane for 13 hours, but because I was giddy with excitement. We were traveling to the other side of the world. Below the equator. Across the international date line. It was new for all of us.

After 29 hours of traveling, we finally arrived in Hawke's Bay, a region on the East Coast of the north island of New Zealand. The town where we stayed was called Napier (pronounced "nay-pee-er," for those of you *cough* who may want to pronounce it "nappie-air"). The town is settled along the bright blue sea and nestled along a big bluff that overlooks the bay. It's a quaint, sleepy, little town with the most friendly people you will ever meet. The people of New Zealand refer to themselves as "Kiwi's," also known as the national bird. They will stop you on your walk, just to chat about where you're from. They'll stop to hug and coddle your baby. They'll invite you into their house (perfect strangers!) after five minutes of knowing them just to show you the view from their balcony. It's an innocent and trusting culture over there...one that we are just unfortunately not used to here in the States.

Anyway, Napier has a bit of history. In 1931, the town was rocked by a huge earthquake and fires. This event basically destroyed their town and left it as dust. As a result, the town built itself back up in fashionable Art Deco architecture, which was popular at the time. To this day, most of the shops, buildings and houses around Napier maintain the structural history of that art deco era. It's quite charming, as if you stepped back into the 30's! I would have loved to be there for Art Deco Month in February, but I could not convince Bobby to stay that long ;)

We stayed in New Zealand for about two weeks and did a lot of exploring, hiking and touring around. Since I took close to 2,000 pictures, I'm going to have to break them up into multiple posts! Part 1 includes the first couple days we spent in the town of Napier. We took a 9 kilometer hike up the bluff and back down around the port just seeing what we could see. Then we drove up to a look out where you could see all of Napier and the neighboring town. Around Napier, there are tons of sculpted gardens. We visited some of those as well. Camden was a trooper. He barely made a peep and was happy as could be in his "new" baby back-pack.

Bobby pretending like he's in one of my photo shoots. Goof.

The streets on Napier Hill.

Below, you can see the port of Napier to the right. The old town is to the left along the coast.

Houses on the bluff. Modern mixed in with traditional and victorian style homes.

Benjamin enjoying the view.

Joey admiring (or critiquing) the style of homes.

My boys. How I love them.

Our little explorer. He LOVED sitting in the grass.

See the waterfall in the background? There is a prison near by (old) and in the 30's, they dug out a quarry and built the waterfall! Kind of disappointing that it's not natural, but pretty nonetheless.

Loved these tree roots growing in the woods.

Stay tuned for more adventures!