"WEEKEND ADVENTURE" Napier Travelogue by kiwi

My weekend just gone. October 2001.
I was invited on a ‘mystery weekend’. This is a brave thing to do, believe me!
The mission, to buy a car for under $500(NZdollars), drive 500kms (310 miles) to the start and then take part in a Rally! Yes, a rally!! We drove this stretch with about 6 cars on the same mission. Lots of fun, relaxed and we stopped so the guys could go jet sprint racing. These are small jet boats with a massive engine that hoon around a water track (looks just like a go cart track but water not dirt). Oh and there is only about 2 ft of water – jets only need minimum water to operate. By this time we had divided into mens and womens teams. The cars had rally stickers on so we were identifiable as “different”. Driving with mostly modern cars on the road, we needed a little bit of consideration for our older ones. Obviously we had a mechanic following in a modern fully equipped vehicle (phew!).
Finally arrived in Wellington for dinner and briefing. Met with the rest of the entrants and at 9pm Friday night were given our instructions.

These girls got dressed for the occassion!

Fuelling up at the start.

The 'radio' car.

The local radio station (Classic Hits Lakeland 99.7FM) had a Hyundai with a sponsored paint job probably worth more than the car! Funny thing was they painted it in the Holden Racing colours - bit of a laugh on a Japanese import!! Lots of fun though.

Our check points were to be 24-hour gas stations where we were to buy something and the receipt has time and date on it, for proof of being there. Smart huh! Some of the teams really got into the spirit of the event and dressed up making it heaps of fun. But the route was very daunting. Thank goodness for the mechanic as “tail end charlie”!
We got off to a bad start, mistakingly using the directions for Stage Two instead of Stage One. How bad is that! Eventually we were on our way! Nice roads and easy questions about the area and towns we were driving through. Over the Rimutaka hills, a bit windy (as in bendy not blowing) and one of us wasn’t feeling too good. So we put her into the driving seat and carried on. As time moved on we were heading into very remote country with extremely windy goat-track roads. All this in the dark! But at least you could focus on the road and not too many distractions. We hit more than one possum (a pest in NZ killing our forest and bush), a rabbit or two and countless frogs. At one point we were even confronted with a ewe sheep and her two gorgeous little twin lambs on the road and they weren’t in a hurry to move!
Unfortunately our friend’s sickness was not improving, and she couldn’t even drive. So we made a team decision to head for straighter roads and some relief. We sent the mechanic on to chase the others convincing him we could look after ourselves and our car was running fine.
We arrived at the city of Napier on the East coast of the North Island, at 6.30am, and checked our friend in to a motel. She was very happy to be able to lie down on a stable comfortable bed. I have to say, that I had been getting nauseous as well and could quite likely have been in her condition.
The remaining two of us went for a drive around this beautiful city and found a lovely café open for breakfast.

The route on the map.

The map shows the rally route (yellow line) and the route we took (red line). You may wonder why we chose to deviate the way we did, but the map doesn’t show how windy the road is. We headed for Dannevirke to find straight sealed roads. The rally route continued to follow unsealed windy roads that would have become too uncomfortable for us to continue on. The section from Napier to Taupo (the yellow line) is especially bad. Our route from Napier to Taupo (red line) however was much easier travelling.

Inside and out.

Anatoles Café, Napier.
Lovely old restored building, luxurious hotel with café.
Lovely furniture and decor inside and scrumptious French Toast for breakfast. Thank goodness my stomach had settled so I could indulge!
And the service was wonderful, the waiter perfect!

Writing the journal.

While the rest of the teams carried on with the rally, and our sick friend rested at the motel, we took the opportunity to write some postcards. Although we had been up all night there was a certain feeling about where we had ended up. It was paradise!! Glorious blue skies, sparkling sea and lovely lovely settings. This city, because of it's situation near the International Date Line, is one of the first cities to see the dawning of the new day.

Foxgloves in the city.

Foxgloves in the city.

More Art Deco from yesteryear.

We ventured down to the wharf area and found many signs of the past activities related to a port town. This area is being renovated and bars and restaurants etc are opening up in the beautifully restored port buildings.

This is a lovely Art Deco example.

What Napier is famous for.

Closer look at detail.

New Zealand is a very young country so we don't have the lovely old buildings of Europe. Napier was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 and rebuilt in the fabulous Art Deco style. At that time it was the newest city in the world - the whole city being of the same age.

Port development.

A little touch of France in New Zealand! Even the car to go with the business. A French 2 CV. It had the number plate :COOK4U.

5pm and we were fit and ready to carry on after we had all had some sleep. Then a 2 hour drive to Taupo, the finish of the rally. Can you believe somebody threw eggs from an oncoming car, and hit us, so we had to put up with the smell of them cooking on the engine!! We had defected, but had had our own little adventure. The others had completed the full 800kms (500 miles) on more of those goat tracks and open roads. Seen some beautiful country but in the dark!
The fun girls driving a Lada had won with the delightful little 1952 Morris Minor coming in 2nd. The Lada girls’ husbands came in 3rd. The other two ladies in our car had their husbands driving an old Audi 100.
One couple had driven all the way from the South Island in their 1956 Prefect.
These are British cars - remember New Zealand was a colony of Britain! Sadly during the night driving on windy roads, I wasn’t in the mood to take photos!!
Prizegiving and barbeque that night and early to bed. Next day we auctioned off the cars for charity. Proceeds going to Canteen (Cancer teenagers). I really had to stop myself buying one or two of these lovely little cars. One needs to be a mechanic to keep them on the road.
Oh, did I tell you it was called the “MisFortune 502”. Think I’ll be a scrutineer next year!

Cars lined up for the auction.

The cars were auctioned at the end of the rally. Money to charity.

Reciting the winning poem.

The last task was for each team to compose and recite a poem about their night of driving. This was very well done and the men did a superb job. I was very surprised at the quality of poems that emerged.

Some fun jetboating.

Here are the guys going for a ride in the jet sprint boat. It is a small jet boat used for time trials, very exciting. They did this on the way down to the rally start.