well i’m on my way…

I left rainy Turangi and instantly fell asleep on the bus.  When I awoke, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I had a few Beatles’ lines in my head: “Tomorrow’ll be rain, so I’ll follow the sun.”  When I got off the bus the sun and warm air felt so good on my skin, which is something I haven’t felt in a few months. 

Napier suffered a massive earthquake in 1931 and when they rebuilt it, they decided to follow the look of that time: Art Deco.  Most of the buildings in the town center have been created with this theme, which made the town super cute.  

I arrived at the hostel, which was a stone’s throw away from the sea, which made me even happier.  I checked out the rocky beach en route to the supermarket and when I came back, there were two Canadian girls in my room getting ready for yoga, and did I want to come with?  Of course I did!  I was ecstatic-every town I’ve been in I’ve been looking for a casual yoga course to loosen all my tight muscles.  I did a little dance as I got ready and almost cried when the class started.  My body was so greatful that I was doing it a favor after all these months of not stretching it and honouring it.  I didn’t realize how much I missed it until the hour and a half was over.  I felt so limber afterwards!

I woke up the next day to another cloudless sky.  Still high from yoga the night before, I extended my stay from two nights to four.  The weather forecast predicted rain everywhere in the North Island except Napier.  I figured as long as the weather was holding out, I would too.  I walked around town, checking out the Art Deco-ness of it with my new yogi Canadian friends.  The hostel owner told us about a beach nearby, so we suited up and picked up a Dutch guy from the hostel and actually laid out on the sand!  I’m sure the locals though we were nuts, as it wasn’t that warm, but in the sun it was just warm enough.  Some clouds rolled in and we covered ourselves with our towels until one of us got enough sense to get up and leave.  I was so happy to be lying on a beach I really didn’t care how cold it was, so I didn’t want to leave with my new friends, but I did.

The next day I spent the entire day by the sea, taking in the smell, the sounds of the waves crashing, and the warm sun on my face.   

I woke up my last day in Napier in a great mood.  The clouds were still nowhere to be found, and I actually had a plan for the day: take photos.  So I walked around the town center again, actually documenting the fact I was there, walked up to a lookout and looked at the sea (what is it about the ocean that people can stare at it for so long?), found the Botanical Gardens with the Napier Cemetary attached, and went to the Napier Museum.  The museum was mostly about the earthquake.  I watched a film of earthquake survivors recounting their stories from that day and days after.  It was amazing what these people, children at the time, went through-watching neighbors lose family memebers and everything they owned only to build the town and their lives back up again. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 8:58 pm and is filed under New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.