The region’s long been well known for its fruit, wine, sunshine and relaxed lifestyle, albeit with a rather staid provincial outward appearance of being something of a retirement haven for jaded Aucklanders and Wellingtonians. However, in recent times Napier and its environs have been shedding that image with the city becoming a thriving comm ercial [...]
I ticked that off my list last summer, as my wife and I meandered back to Martinborough after spending a weekend in Napier. Months earlier I had taken a road map of New Zealand and had gone over it with a felt pen tracing out all the roads I had travelled. Of course, the major [...]
February found us, like many others, on our way to the Wings Over Wairarapa show which, as it happened, was cancelled due to bad weather. About then, the Art Deco festival was taking place in Napier, so the small towns along State Highway 2 (SH2) were beneficiaries of the travelling public seeking coffee, food, fuel [...]
I've had a long love affair with Napier’s Art Deco scene. Whenever I stroll along Tennyson Street, I find myself constantly gazing upwards with my wandering eye drawn to weird geometrical designs that leap out from ice-cream coloured building facades of a bygone era. In February each year, I dress up in my sauciest [...]