Art Deco Delights

We spent a couple of nights in Napier and arrived just in time to catch the end of the annual Art Deco Weekend.

 

Napier was devastated by an earthquake in 1931 and in the spirit of the times the architects of the reconstruction, flush with the heady delights of the Art Deco movement, rebuilt the city in that style. The Festival attracts loads of folk who own old jalopies, who dress up in 30s clothes, drive into town, set up gazebos on the seafront and then sit around having tea and cakes.

B&B

A steam engine imported into NZ in 1905

A dear Austin

The streets were thronging with strollers in period costume and fleets of cars ferried tourists and locals around. Some amazing cars ... American and European ... All very Gatsby. Some photos, quite obviously, to follow ...

As you can imagine we took lots of photos and it's difficult to choose those which best represent the feel of the town; it's quite unique I imagine in the Southern Hemisphere ...

Front of the theatre

The theatre had an interesting programme of forthcoming events including ...

IS Coronation Street a comedy? And isn't Ken Barlow too old to travel? CN he still get travel insurance?(Ed.)

A combination of Prague, San Francisco (in parts) and a bit of untrammelled overdevelopment here and there!

Vineyard touring

As Napier's in Hawkes Bay it was only fitting that we should visit a few vineyards, so we 'did a tour' which involved a minibus and 4 vineyards where we were forced to taste several wines at each one (the first one had 12!)

Wines rowed up for tasting ...

This was a tough day and though we (I) didn't quite sample the goods with the same frantic fervour as the recent wine tasting with J&J, there was still sufficient activity to file off the rougher edges of an already and otherwise pleasant day...

Chief correspondent and front bench

 

The occasionally rather anoraky Chief Correspondent GPS'd the tour and the route may be accessed Here ...

 

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