Napier

We finally left Taupo and headed back down south to an adorable city called Napier. It’s a coastal town, filled with art deco architecture, and surrounded by the vineyards of Hawke’s Bay. The vibe was very relaxed and reminded us of a lot of Santa Barbara. We went wine tasting (the first tour we didn’t do via bike!) and loved each of the vineyards we visited – Elephant Hill, Craggy Range, Black Barn, Clear View, and Te Awa.

Our host at Elephant Hill was extremely excited about a 2013 Pinot Noir. He claimed that he opened it specially for us after raving about it, but we think he just wanted to try it out himself. We didn’t have the heart to tell him we liked the cheap one better. The paradise that Coromandel provided continued in Napier; we only had one mishap there…

We loved the campsites that we had found in Napier – spacious, clean, running potable water (!), and our first night there, we thought we had lucked out in finding the best site. It was super private, surrounded by trees, so surrounded in fact that our bumper was pretty much in the trees. We slept well and headed into town the next morning, but as we were walking away from the car, Hans noticed a line of ants crawling on the hood. We investigated further only to find tons of them crawling in and out of our front doors. We booked it to a car wash and bought a bunch of ant killer. We were terrified they’d get into our kitchen in the trunk. We kept a watchful eye and sprayed like crazy people over the next few days and luckily, they were gone pretty quickly.

It was mid-January by the time we left Napier to head back to Wellington. Three months living in Mayo! The time absolutely flew by, and we had a blast being vagabonds. However, now that we were trying to transition back into “real life”, living in the van was becoming more frustrating. For example, we had to plan our showers at the local pool around the days when we had meetings with recruiters who frequently flaked on us…$3 and all showered for nothing!