Hawke's Bay

Upon leaving Te Urewera National Park we stopped at the junction town of Wairoa to reconnect with the world via wifi for the first time in over a week.  After we'd reassured our family we were alive and well we headed south for the Hawkes Bay region.  First stop was Shine Falls, which was a bit of a last minute addition to our plans, but I'm glad we took the time to make the stop.  After the obligatory dirt road we came to the car park of the Mainland Island Reserve.  An hour's hike brought you through some impressive stone cliff farmlands before running through the forested and deep river valley.  Along the way we had a rare encounter with some fellow Americans from Washington and walked the final stretch to the falls with them.  Shine Falls is HUGE and eminently beautiful.  It's the kind of place that beckons you forth, seductively whispering for you to come and explore her waters.  Kayleigh and I, won over by her charm, both waded in.  It's a shame that we had arrived so late, as the high walls left the pool and the falls veiled in shadows.  The sandy bottomed pool was so soft it almost made the icy water bearable.  When our feet started to numb we decided it best to move on, and hiked back glowing with a wonderful first impression of Hawkes Bay.

Some lucky man's farmland

Shine Falls

The next day would see us out of the forest and into Hawkes Bay's biggest city, Napier.  Napier was completely leveled by a massive earthquake in the 1931 and the central city was rebuilt from the ground up in the then-fashionable art-deco style.  As you can imagine, this attracts tourists from all over the come and wander through its quaint streets, and wine and dine in its many styled hotels and restaurants.  The city has the style and feel of a kiwi Santa Barbara, only with art deco buildings in place of spanish colonial style.  I have to admit that I had often heard of art deco, but before coming to Napier and being completely submersed in it I hadn't known what it was.  It turns out I like it, there is something vaguely comforting about it.  It reminds me of an old traditional diner, or an old black and white noir type film.  Anyways, we wandered the streets and along the waterfront for a bit before heading up to the bluff top viewpoint only to get a view of the industrial port of the city.  The coastline and water were surely gorgeous, but the big cargo ships unloading there wears dominated the foreground leaving something to be desired.

Hawkes Bay is also one of New Zealand's three biggest wine producing regions, and we weren't going to leave the area without partaking in what is quickly becoming one of my favorite activities - wine tasting.  A little over 10km south of Napier is the city of Hastings, which is the center of Hawkes Bay wine region.  We made our way around a few of the wineries and had a merry ol' time.  On average I found the Hawkes Bay wines to be more agreeable than those from Wairarapa to the south.  They had particularly tasty Shiraz and, much to my surprise, Chardonnay.  After the wining, we drove (well, Kayleigh drove thanks to her benevolent foresight to stop drinking a few wineries in) back to Napier for some dining.  We don't often get to eat out due to our budget, but we just couldn't pass it up in Napier.  There was just something homey about it.  Homey, but classy.

Finally, to end what was arguably one of my favorite days in New Zealand, we returned to the mountains north of Napier to the Tarawera Hotsprings.  Words cannot describe the beauty and bliss.  First of all, we got lucky and were granted permission to stay the night in the car park of the Tarawera Cafe, which is at the trailhead to the virtually unknown springs.  The sky was already darkening as we pulled up into the car park, but we quickly readied our things and changed into bathing suits and took to the wild and unkept trail.  About 15 minutes walk got us there.  Two concrete tubs sat at the edge of a bush-clad river, and one was conveniently already filled to the brim with clean hot water from the earth-sourced hose.  We arrived just as the moon was poking over the mountain ridge opposite to the pools, illuminating everything in a magic glow, and we didn't see another soul the whole night.

Stunning seclusion 

The moonrise