Friday 22nd June 2007

After the horrors of last nights drive over to Napier, we thought we'd have a relaxing day. We thought we'd head into town and just hang around there. Perhaps look around the shops, perhaps stop for a drink somewhere - anything but drive over mountainous terrain!

We slept until about 9am this morning and then Nikki made us bacon and egg sarnies for our breakfast before we went out exploring. We took a nice walk along the beach and then headed into the centre. Napier is quite a cool place. It looks a lot like Miami with a lot of Art Deco buildings.

When we'd been walking around for a few hours we stopped in a coffee shop for a drink and slice of cake before hitting the shops again. We found an Outdoor store which was having a clear-out and Nikki bought us some thermal socks to keep our feet warm in the South Island.

We left Napier and drove for about 20 minutes to a place called Hastings, where we knew we could find a campsite. We checked ourselves in and then made ourselves a spaghetti bolognese for our tea (Nikki made it really, I just stirred the pasta every once in a while).

After tea we jumped in the van and drove into town looking for a pub. We found an Irish one and went in there for a drink. When we left we took a slow drive back and I had the laptop out doing a bit of 'Internet Rustling'. We found an open signal on a quiet street and sat for about 20 minutes checking our emails and then Nikki watched the EastEnders catch-ups on the BBC webpage. We got back to the campsite and watched a film in bed.

I think we'll stick to the proper roads from now on - they're much easier!