NAPIER/AHURIRI: THE ROAD OF THE GREAT WINES

Visiting Napier in Hawkes Bay

Today, The Grandma and her friends are spending their last day in New Zealand.

It has been a fantastic trip and they have enjoyed a lot visiting the most spectacular and beautiful places of the country and meeting with its inhabitants.  

New Zealand is a fantastic country where different cultures live together and where the ancient ones have started to be well-known and appreciated by the last generations of new comers.

It's sad to leave this country but they are very proud and happy of choosing New Zealand as their last destination. The Grandma likes wine and she has invited her friends to taste some of the best world wines in Napier in Hawke's Bay on the eastern coast of the North Island. They have returned to the North Island to say goodbye to their new Kiwi friends and to celebrate life and friendship.

During the travel from Queenstown to Napier, The Grandma has studied two new lessons of her First Certificate Language Practice manual (Grammar 30 & 31).

More information: Inversion & Question Tags

Napier, in Māori Ahuriri, is a New Zealand city with a seaport, located in Hawke's Bay on the eastern coast of the North Island. About 18 kilometres south of Napier is the inland city of Hastings. These two neighbouring cities are often called The Bay Cities or The Twin Cities of New Zealand.

Napier is about 320 kilometres northeast of the capital city of Wellington. Napier has a smaller population than its neighbouring city of Hastings but is seen as the main centre due to it being closer in distance to both the seaport and the main airport that service Hawke's Bay. The City of Napier has a land area of 106 square kilometres and a population density of 540.0 per square kilometre.

More information: Napier City Council

Napier is the nexus of the largest wool centre in the Southern Hemisphere, and it has the primary export seaport for northeastern New Zealand, which is the largest producer of apples, pears, and stone fruit in New Zealand.

The Grandma visits the vineyards in Napier

Napier has also become an important grape and wine production area, with the grapes grown around Hastings and Napier being sent through the Port of Napier for export.

Large amounts of sheep's wool, frozen meat, wood pulp, and timber also pass through Napier annually for export. Smaller amounts of these materials are shipped via road and railway to the large metropolitan areas of New Zealand itself, such as Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton.

More information: New Zealand

Napier is a popular tourist city, with a unique concentration of 1930s Art Deco architecture, built after much of the city was razed in the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake. It also has one of the most photographed tourist attractions in the country, a statue on Marine Parade called Pania of the Reef. Thousands of people flock to Napier every February for the Tremains Art Deco Weekend event, a celebration of its Art Deco heritage and history. Other notable tourist events attracting many outsiders to the region annually include F.A.W.C! Food and Wine Classic events, and the Mission Estate Concert at Mission Estate and Winery in the suburb of Taradale.

Napier has well-documented Māori history. When the Ngāti Kahungunu party of Taraia reached the district many centuries ago, the Whatumamoa, Rangitane and the Ngāti Awa and elements of the Ngāti Tara iwi existed in the nearby areas of Petane, Te Whanganui-a-Orotu and Waiohiki. Later, the Ngāti Kahungunu became the dominant force from Poverty Bay to Wellington. They were one of the first Māori tribes to come in contact with European settlers.

Joseph de Ca'th Lon visits the vineyards in Napier

Chief Te Ahuriri cut a channel into the lagoon space at Ahuriri because the Westshore entrance had become blocked, threatening cultivations surrounding the lagoon and the fishing villages on the islands in the lagoon. The rivers were continually feeding freshwater into the area.

Captain James Cook was one of the first Europeans to see the future site of Napier when he sailed down the east coast in October 1769. He commented: On each side of this bluff head is a low, narrow sand or stone beach, between these beaches and the mainland is a pretty large lake of salt water I suppose. He said the harbour entrance was at the Westshore end of the shingle beach. The site was subsequently visited and later settled by European traders, whalers and missionaries. By the 1850s, farmers and hotel-keepers arrived.

The Crown purchased the Ahuriri block, including the site of Napier, in 1851. In 1854 Alfred Domett, a future Prime Minister of New Zealand, was appointed as the Commissioner of Crown Lands and the resident magistrate at the village of Ahuriri.

It was decided to place a planned town here, its streets and avenues were laid out, and the new town named for Sir Charles Napier, a military leader during the Battle of Meeanee fought in the province of Sindh, India. Domett named many streets in Napier to commemorate the colonial era of the British Indian Empire.

More information: Hawke's Bay

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.

Plautus