Napier Weekend Trip!

Hi friends! I finally made it outside of the Wellington area for a weekend. This time, my friend Chip and I decided to make a last minute trip to Napier, which is a 6 hour bus ride from our home city. We left on Friday, at 7:30 am( which I almost missed because Claire decided to stay up until 4 am the  night before). When we arrived, we explored the town a little bit and checked out the black sand beaches along Marine Parade. Napier is a Art-Deco Town that was styled this way after an earthquake, and is mostly a hopping' tourist center during the summertime. It was pretty cool place and I loved the look of the shops and the cafes!

We lodged at an airbnb nearby the town center which was lovely and our host Jo was so welcoming and friendly. However, we still needed a car to get around, so Chip took on driving on the left side of the road for the first time ( I thought I was going to die at one point, sorry Chip). We also needed the car to get to our main attraction of our trip Te Mata Peak. Off we went on Saturday morning to the hike site. I failed to mention it rained all of Friday night, so the trail was a mud pit full of fallen trees. We went anyway and it was worth the 4 hour total trip that was needed for Te Mata. The track would never be regulated in the US, as we hopped up some rocks and dangled on the edge for a good bit. The views though were worth being covered in mud at the end and I want to go back!

Te Mata has been one of my fav spots so far in NZ, I couldn't believe how beautiful and green it was despite being winter. We headed back to our airbnb, cleaned ourselves up and went to explore! We ended up going to salt water pools called Ocean Spa. Although we are still a little doubtful whether or not it was actually salt water, it was a nice way to relax my muscles after the hike!  I don't really have many photos from that because water, but would recommend going. 

Here are some bonus shots of Napier, as if there wasn't enough photos in this post already ( forgive me please). We found this cute little orange stand and bought a bag of fresh oranges, and it was adorbs so might as well include it. 

Well that's all folks! I hope you enjoyed pieces of Napier and this post. Also, one month down in NZ, and my parents and Jack are coming next week so there should be a bunch more adventure posts coming ya way!