Napier to Waikanae

We were up early and had breakfast with T. He went off to an appointment at 9am, I hung out the washing, then we loaded up the car and set off just after 10am. We drove first to EIT (Eastern Institute of Technology) to look at the damage caused by Cyclone Gabrielle. I was quite pleased that a lot of it has been cleared up, but the buildings are mostly closed off by fencing. Just past EIT is the Waiohiki Bridge over the Tutaekuri River, which was demolished during the Cyclone. The contractors are making good progress repairing the bridge and it should be usable in the next two or three weeks. Afterwards we drove to Pakowhai Road, which was badly hit by the Cyclone. Again, a lot of clean up work has been done, but it’s still possible to see trees, houses and vehicles that have been destroyed. It was quite a sobering drive. We then set off on our trip to Waikanae but got distracted when we decided to visit the small hamlet of Norsewood, which has a shop called Norsewear. We had a lovely time browsing through the garments and bought one each because we need more warm clothes for Oamaru. We then moved on to Dannevirke where we had lunch before setting off on the last part of the journey to Waikanae. Apple Maps took us on a very scenic route, which included being up close to some wind turbines. We checked in to our motel then I called the Interislander Ferry as they’d sent me an email saying the weather forecast was deteriorating for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I managed to change from a 4:30pm ferry tomorrow afternoon to an 8:45am ferry tomorrow morning. It’s really important for us to get across Cook Strait tomorrow.

We called the friend we’d come to Waikanae to see, she picked us up and took us back to her place where we spent a very pleasant hour and a half catching up on each other’s news before going out for a nice meal at a restaurant called The Coastie (Waikanae is on the coast). We had an early night, as we’ve got a very early start in the morning.

The collage shows a beautiful flame vine at our friend’s house; outside the Norsewear store; two of the wind turbines; a Viking at Dannevirke.