Art Deco City

Day 8  Wednesday, March 20, 2019   Napier

Napier's Municipal Theatre was a good example of the Art Deco style on their main streets. An earthquake in 1931 destroyed the existing town, so as they rebuilt, they adopted the architectural style of that time. There are 123 Art Deco buildings in town

This and the next several photos were taken out the window of our tour bus. The photo above was The Six Sisters, six nearly identical homes built in the 1890s by a guy for each of his daughters.  They face the ocean along the main Marine Parade boulevard, and they survived the 1931 earthquake.

We had had a leisurely morning since our one-hour tour didn't begin until 11:50. Earlier, I had tried to find a phone number for Natalie Kerwin, the Trek tour guide, who lives here. We had exchanged e-mails months earlier about getting together, but in all my recent attempts to make final plans, she never responded. A local volunteer outside (Kia Ora!) could not find her in the white pages, so I gave up.

An interesting home on our bus tour. The small port was a bit north from the city, and the ONLY way you could leave from the port was by vehicle -- no walking. The port was completely covered with lumber destined for China, just as all our ports were. The bus guide mentioned as we were driving toward the city, below Bluff Hill, that the road and land we were driving on was "reclaimed" after the 1931 earthquake, when the land rose and added 7000 acres to the city.

An old shipping company building that's now a cool-looking pub in the old Ahuriri port area NW of downtown.

Loved the name of this pub! As city tours go, this one was not so interesting. We drove around town, but the best sightseeing was in the downtown once our tour ended.

 As we got off our tour bus, we saw another memorial to the Christchurch tragedy. We then walked down the street to a bike shop to see if they knew Natalie and might be able to contact her. They'd heard of her, but didn't know her.

Because Napier has its Art Deco image, they also have many city tours given in these old 1930s cars. They were everywhere. Napier is on the broader Hawke's Bay, which is famous for its wine. NZ's oldest wineries are there, and now there are 70 of them.

This is the main downtown street that had most of the Art Deco buildings, where we strolled for a couple hours and ate our lunch. The following 10 photos show some of the cool-looking styles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This old Provincial Hotel is now the Drum and Cock Pub. Doncha love the names of pubs? The main street names here were all famous authors: Tennyson, Emerson, Dickens, and Shakespeare.

 

 There's evidence of when this part of town was rebuilt - it says 1932 on the F. Thorpe & Co building.

Seeing this pub inspired Janet and me to find a less crowded pub just down the street. Great lunch.

Another 1930s car drove past on Tennyson St. They knew how to provide the feel of that era!

 Our stroll then took us through Clive Park, a pretty green area in the downtown.

Lots of lily pads and blooms at the William Robert Blythe Fountain (he was a local public servant).

Across from the park was the Trinity Methodist Church, from 1876, with a 100-yr-old pipe organ.

At the end of our city walk, we took the shuttle back to the ship. As we passed by this statue, it reminded us that we forgot to go find it ourselves since we had earlier heard the Māori myth about Pania of the Reef.

I got this from the Internet. The myth is that Pania was a beautiful maiden who was lured away from Karitoki, the very handsome son of a Māori Chief whom she loved.  She was lured by the sea people who dwelled off the coast. She walked to the ocean depths, never to return. They say you can see Pania out on the reefs with her arms outstretched, striving to return to her lover whom she left that day.

This picture looks back to our ship's berth in this tiny harbor, to the left of that cargo ship. Bluff Hill is in the background. I remember in the morning being amazed at how squeezed in our ship was, with port walls both directly in front and in back of us. I wondered how they ever could have maneuvered our huge ship into its spot. As we departed, I realized they needed lots of thruster power and two tug boats to push.

Once the tug boats were able to pull away, this one did spins as a way to say goodbye. Kinda funny to watch.

Not too good a picture, but it still shows the Australian Beatles, who performed at 9 pm in the Piazza. Janet and I knew that getting a good seat for them would be tough if we waited until near 9 pm, so we chose to grab two front-row chairs at 5 pm, and just stay there to listen to other music groups through the evening. We thoroughly enjoyed the violinist in the duo called Acoustic Rush Duo, as well as Marius Baetica on the piano. We took turns getting our dinner from the International Cafe a few feet away, and bringing our plates back to the chairs to eat. 

Another poor picture, but you can still see "John", with "George" in the middle, "Paul" on the far side, and "Ringo" behind on the drums. It was fun with everyone singing along, and them pretending to be the Fab Four. Since we were sitting there for four hours, we got to see them setting up their equipment earlier, and it was funny to see them in their casual clothes and with their regular hair, or lack thereof. Janet and I even danced to several songs.