Napier

February 3
Napier

Today was another get out and explore day. Again, I got off the ship with Terry, along with a couple of other friends to walk through the city. We did some shopping, for what ever reason I’ve been looking around for a cool hat (fedora style) to wear in port, but I wasn’t able to find one today. When we got tired of walking through the city we made our way out to the beach and bought some ice cream. I, for absolutely no logical reason, bought maple syrup and hazelnut ice cream, or something to that extent. Needless to say, it tasted like pancakes, and though it was decent ice cream, the breakfast experience wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. But hey, I’m always up for trying something new – have you ever had pancake ice cream?
The group returned to the main part of the city and broke off, Terry and the other guy went to a café, myself and a youth staff girl (Tina) went on our own excursion. After walking along the beach for a while, we came to a botanical garden. The highlight of the garden seemed to be a large waterfall feeding a pond that ran through it, and after some pictures and close up examinations, I came across what looked like what could have been a trail. Well, that’s all the encouragement I need to climb up the side of another cliff as I escape from my botanical A.D.D.
Tina, luckily, was up for a climb and followed along as I pulled myself up onto the path using vines and tree roots to get above the first cliff. I was able to make the limb in my walking shoes, Tina did it in flip flops. We slowly made our way through the wooded incline following a thin strip of dirt I figured was a trail, putting our lives at the mercy of the vines we used as climbing rope (which I’m very carefully to test before putting my life on the line). Soon enough we were above the waterfall, which to my dismay, originated from nothing than a small concrete pool fed by pipes that must have been coming from the pond below – there goes the magic of New Zealand. Anyways, I got over it and we pushed forward to the top. The climb culminated at this thin dirt out cropping, which is probably one of the more dangerous places I’ve been on these hikes of mine. To my right was a huge vertical drop to the street, my left would have left me hanging in branches far below, all while I walked forward on a narrow curved ridge of dirt. Meanwhile, Tina is ahead of me in flip flops. At the end of the dirt ridge sat a house placed at the extreme end of the neighbor hood. Due to the thinness of the area we’d climbed ourselves into we had two options – a: climb back down (which wasn’t going to happen because we were lucky enough to climb up that ridge without fatal injuries, or b: jump a fence and walk through the house’s thin back porch area. Well, we did just that, jumped a fence and walked within feet of opened doors and who knows how many inhabitants, exited the gate on the other side, walked down the drive way and on to solid pavement with out any further awkwardness.
We made our way back through the community and hopped a shuttle back to the ship and everything was back to normal. I went up to the gym soon after and the rest of the day played out as usual – thanks!