Napier

So we hired a car in Wellington and left right away for Napier.  Even still, we ended up driving for a couple hours in the dark. But I have found my dad's kiwi doppleganger.  The manager at the Napier YHA has similar mannerisms and conversations with him go in a similar way.  It was really fun.

We walked over to the Pack and Save and bought lunches for the next couple days as well as four crappy mini frozen pizzas (although we wouldn't know how crappy until we ate them).  As a side note, Kiwi's love meat.  There is virtually no market for vegetarian food.  One example of this is every grocery store we've checked sells only meat pizzas in the frozen section.  No cheese, no veggie, but always ham and pineapple or meat lovers or supreme.  The only pizza that doesn't have pig or cow were these mini pizzas that came in bbq chicken flavors.

Anyways, in the morning we talked to Kiwi Dad about doing a bike wine tour of the region.  We were strongly recommended to do one and were really looking forward to trying it.  It was sprinkling just a little bit so we were hopeful it would clear completely by the afternoon, but the first company we called said they were closed because it was still raining where they were.  So we decided to do a driving wine tour of the region instead.  We grabbed a map and a suggested route and left.

Elephant Hill was the first stop.  They had six wines available to taste, 3 whites, 2 reds, and a dessert wine.  The main building had a large window overlooking the vineyard which was really beautiful.
Next we drove to Taka Peak overlook which was had a 360 degree view over the entire Hawke's bay.  We made wraps in the car with the fantastic view.

We stopped at Black Barn vineyard next where I forgot to take the camera out of the car.  But that's okay because the wine was just okay that we tasted.  And we drove some more to Salvare which had both wine and olive oil tasting.  The wines were decent (I liked them more than Andy), but it was really fun to taste the olive oil.  It wasn't just olive oil, it was also mustard and dressing and vinaigrettes.  All with a little bit of bread.

The last stop, Silky Oaks Chocolate shop where we bought four small chocolate pieces for $5 NZD. Then off to National Park Backpackers to be as close as possible to the Tongariro Crossing track for the next morning.