Taupo to Art Decoland

What happens if your city is destroyed by an earthquake? You rebuild in reinforced concrete. How do you stop your city looking like Hitler's Atlantic Wall? Art Deco! (This is the fire station.)

We drove from Taupo. This big chunk of NZ seems to be pine plantations interupted by sheep paddocks. We always try to stop regularly to stretch and look around. We saw a blue sign saying "Rest Stop" and a tiny red sign saying something "Falls". We pulled in. No information. No railings. No gift shop. Just stupendous twin waterfalls. This country is blessed.

We stopped at another vista. On the left was a huge valley. On our right was a large flock of sheep staring at us. There was a whistle and we got to watch two very enthusiastic sheepdogs at work. Great fun.

In Napier we booked ourselves into the art deco walking tour and we now know a lot more about earthquakes, 'Art Deco' and 'Spanish Mission'. Mostly we were looking at exteriors but we were then shown around the local backpacker hostel which has retained a lot of the original interior decoration as well. Lyn's favourite bit on the tour was the chrome 'door pulls' while I enjoyed the random bits of Mayan, Egyptian and Maori design. It was a much needed quiet day. Relaxing now.

Napier's earthquake was in 1931. The decade previous had seen the discovery and excavation of Tut's tomb, which might explain why the museum looks like an Egyptian temple and this design is a papyrus plant!