Napier- A Refreshing Walk

Real-time

We've had a busy time in Napier although if you asked 'doing what?', it would be hard to answer. We've both been busy catching up on lots of small jobs on our computers and the vehicles... ours and Mum & Dads'! It's a great feeling when you cross items off your 'to do' list, although it seems I have been adding jobs to the top as fast as they're dropping off the bottom because the list looks just as long as when we arrived.

Snow still on the Kawekas this past week

It's been typical sunny and warm Hawke's Bay weather this past week or so but the big storm hit us not long after we arrived in Napier, with snow, rain and power cuts. I had a chuckle though, it was bucketing down outside, the wind was atrocious, snow had closed the Taihape & Taupo roads (a rare event, especially the Napier-Taupo) and the power was off for the second time in a few hours. 

My sister Gae & brother-in-law David, were visiting from Whangarei and we were having a small family gathering later in the evening. I went inside (we're parked beside the house) to see how they were all going- to be greeted by a miserable lot sitting in the dark, wrapped up in extra clothing, with no heating, no coffee, no breakfast, no TV and no way to cook for the party. I returned to my diesel heated van, to drink my coffee and eat my bacon & eggs while listening to my favourite music. Just another day for us, don't know what the fuss was about! Luckily the power did come back on later in the morning.

It rained solid for a good few days and by the time it stopped some of us were suffering from a dose of cabin fever, so Gae, David(BIL) & I headed to Ahuriri for a walk to blow away the cobwebs. While we were waiting for a friend to join us, I wandered down to Perfume Point to take some photos of the murals painted on the side of the lighthouse.

'Marine Protected Areas' by Aaron Glasson

The 'Sea Walls: Murals for Oceans' street art festival was held back in March. Over 30 large murals have been painted on walls around Napier. Their aim is to highlight marine environmental issues relevant to the local community. It was my intention to photograph them all before we left Napier, and I have managed to do just that later in the week. But I'm only going to show a few here, the ones we passed on the walk. I'll do another blog with the others later on.

We headed off down the boardwalk past East Pier Hotel...

...along the front of The Boardwalk Restaurant where waves from the weekend storm has left sand, seaweed and driftwood across the path.

Some hardy paddle boarders were riding the waves a little further along Hardinge Road.

And we passed another mural- Endangered Maui's Dolphins- on a wall at Napier Port.

It was very cold with a bitter wind blowing as we turned onto Marine Parade but it was lovely to breathe in the fresh sea air. It was lucky Gae borrowed Mum's big thick jacket even though it nearly swallowed her up. While these Northlanders are well used to rain, they'd forgotten how cold it can get in the Bay. 

Well, it's not quite New Brighton Pier but Napier's new viewing platform looks pretty cool against a brooding sky and rough ocean.

It's probably just as well it doesn't reach any further than the high tide mark because I can imagine the problems it would have caused with people using it as a launching platform to swim from. The waters off Marine Parade are dangerous enough at the best of times, let alone when there's a storm a brewing.

And at least the view back over the beach and along Marine Parade is one we've never seen before. 

We make our way back to the road passing two old favourites along the way; the Tom Parker Fountain and Pania of the Reef.

We head towards Shakespeare Road to walk back over Bluff Hill. The 1909 old County Council building is now a luxury boutique hotel, this was one of just two significant buildings that survived the devastating 1931 earthquake.

I spot another mural tucked beside a nearby carpark- Plastic Pollution Affecting Sea Turtles

We stop beside a familiar building, the old Cabana Hotel at the bottom of Shakespeare Road. Gae, Jill and I all went to Napier Girls High School which is just up the hill. The Cabana Hotel had a very rough reputation in it's day and any girls walking into town at lunch time or after school had to walk the gauntlet past the public bar which was usually full of drunken dropouts and sailors from the boats in port.

We carried on up Shakespeare Road, a walk we would have done dozens of times during our teenage years, even though Gae & I caught a school bus from the farm to school in our early years, and then later, rode our motorbikes or drove our own cars. We were the lucky ones, you were only allowed your own transport if you lived out of town. But we often had a pass to walk into town for various appointments or shopping.

We passed the Naked Witch, which, according to Jill, in 'famous in Napier'. I wonder if it has anything to do with a certain notorious lady who lived her final years in Napier, loved purple and was a self-proclaimed witch.

We head down the other side of hill back towards Ahuriri, and I catch a quick glimpse of Napier Girls over the top of the old dairy, a shop I saw the inside of a few too many times.

We pass this unusual tiny little house tucked into the cliff at the bottom of Shakespeare Road. Its been there for a long while but none of us know it's history.  

The many houses of Scinde Island (Bluff Hill) and Ahuriri, most built before the 1931 'quake and when water surrounded the hill, and Ahuriri was a busy port.

Gae does her best impression of a 1930's flapper beside the historic Tram Shelter near Battery Road in Ahuriri.

In 1911, the council installed an electric tram system that linked Ahuriri to downtown Napier, the service ended after the earthquake but the well-preserved tram shelter still stands and murals in keeping with Napier's Art Deco theme have been painted on the walls of the building.

We carry on along Waghorne Street, an area steeped in history, where new apartments sit alongside tiny old fisherman's cottages and industrial warehouses. Ahuriri was one of earliest settled areas of Napier when the harbour at Iron Pot was the site of Hawke's Bays main port.

We say hello to Dulcie's owner as we pass, she's having a few battery problems, poor girl.

The things you see along the backstreets...

One of the old fishing cottages...

Another Sea Wall on the side of the Navigate Hotel & Apartments- Bryde Whales & Fishing Ships

And a final wall for now, in amongst the shops and cafes of Ahuriri village- NZ Endangered Marine Animals

We cut back up Barry Street to the waterfront and the cars, passing the restored facade of the Ellison & Duncan building with it's quirky window murals.

The original building was designed by Louis Hay as part of the reconstruction of Napier following the 1931 earthquake. Louis Hay also designed the nearby iconic National Tobacco Company building.

Back at the carpark we say goodbye to Jill and head home, happy with our walk and feeling very refreshed.

Glossy Ibis & the Travis Wetland

This my friends, is a very rare bird, & this my friends, is a very bad photo. But, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words & it’s my record of a very special bird, a Glossy Ibis.

The Glossy Ibis is a rare vagrant to New Zealand, there have only ever been 50 or so sightings in New Zealand over a long period of time. The Ibis is common throughout much of southern Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Atlantic and Caribbean region of the Americas and occasionally, one or two make it all the way to NZ for the winter.

This particular Ibis has been making it's way to the Travis Wetlands in Christchurch most winters for a number of years. And how do they know it is the same bird each year? It does a peculiar high kick & little shake (see #2 photo) while walking. I thought it had something caught on its leg until one of my fellow bird forum members, who has been following the Ibis for a few years, informed me otherwise. I'm sure it must be a female with a dainty step or she doesn't like getting mud on her toes (it's not known what sex the bird is).

I had heard through the forum that the Ibis had arrived back at the wetlands and as we were in Christchurch it was an ideal opportunity to see if we could find it. I’d been given an idea of where the ibis might be located in the vast expanse of the wetland but no matter how much we scanned the two paddocks and one of the ponds we could not find it, back & forward we walked half a dozen times. In the end every pukeko & male paradise duck with it’s bum in the air ended up looking like the elusive ibis. After two hours of scanning & hoping we had to call it quits and head for home, which was a good 35kms over the other side of the city. I left feeling very dejected but it wasn’t as though we hadn’t tried.

That night I learnt that somebody had spotted it in a large paddock/marshland in another area of the wetland. We hadn’t walked far enough! That was it, we had to return. It was too good an opportunity to miss, to see such a rare bird, and another 70km round trip wasn’t going to deter us. So the next day back we went. And this time we found it. Way, way over the back of the paddock & very hard to spot. It was feeding and moving in amongst the Canada geese, pukekos & paradise ducks. Once it flew a short distance but never close enough for me to get any decent shots. My photos are zoomed & cropped to within an inch of their lives but I have the record & another bird to add to our list.

What a wonderful asset the Travis Nature Heritage Park is to Christchurch, it’s a huge freshwater wetland that was saved from reclamation & subdivision in 1997. There are thousands of birds of many different species located all over the wetland; on ponds, in the swamps, grazing on the open marshlands & hidden in the rushes.

There is a 3.5km walkway, including a boardwalk over sensitive peat areas, around it’s perimeter & through the centre, with bird hides, a viewing tower & an education centre at various points on the track.

Some of the birds from Travis; New Zealand shoveler (kuruwhengi) & grey teal (tētē)
teal &

A female hybrid mallard, female paradise duck (putakitaki) & a pesky harrier hawk (kahu) that kept putting up all the birds each time it flew over.

 

The comical & cheeky pukeko (swamp hen). The Wetland supports over half the total Christchurch pukeko population and is Canterbury’s largest winter concentration of pukeko at around 700 birds.

After we left Travis, and because we were very near, we drove along the waterfront to the New Brighton Pier. There was a chilly wind blowing so we didn’t walk out to the end although there were quite a few people on the point fishing & braving the elements.

We have been staying at the NZMCA Weedons Park, south of the city, for the last eight days and although we have been busy (me doing blogs, photos & a bit of window shopping, David doing maintenance & cleaning) we haven’t done any tiki-touring other than the wetland visits. The weather has been stunning with lovely sunny warm days although there has been the odd frosty morning and storm clouds rolling in at sunset. Once again we’ve dodged the weather woes, this time flooding in Nelson where we should have been by now.

But, it may just be catching up with us. Today we’ve moved out to Duvauchelle on Banks Peninsula. Tonight the forecast says a polar blast is due over the South Island with a snow warning for Banks Peninsula amongst others. It did nothing for our confidence when we arrived at the camp ground, they put us on the hard stand so we wouldn’t get stuck on the grass/mud when the rain comes. Of course if it snows we may not even be able to haul ourselves up and over the summit to escape the Peninsula anyway! I could think of worse places to be…..

Duvauchelle- centre left