Monday 14 February

Its Valentines day and this is a very romantic place to be. This morning we were woken by the beautiful song of a Tui bird singing outside our bedroom window. Then we went outside to discover that the valley below us was wreathed in mist while above us the sky was clear and blue with the early morning sum warming the terrace. Needless to say we decided to take our morning cup of tea outside and watch the mist slowly clear while we listened to the sound of the birds and the cycades and to our new Rumer CD.

Then suddenly the romance seemed to fizzle out when first Steve went for a morning dip in the pool and found he wasn't alone – a field mouse was in the pool doing a few laps with him! Then the mother of problems started when we decided to subscribe for 24 hours use of the internet as it's not free here and it just went from bad to worse. Finally after about an hour, a couple of phone calls and finding the owner to disconnect the router, we were all set up but by this time it was about 11am and the day was disappearing fast so we went out.

Our first destinations were a couple of the local wineries which are open to the public within about 5 miles of Millar Road. The first, Craggy Range, looked like a crematorium with huge stone walls on either side of the entrance and was in a pink marble building – we didn't stay long!  The next, Te Mata, was much more likeable and I particularly liked a white wine called Zara made from the Viognier grape, which is quite rare.   Available in Waitrose apparently!

Then we drove into Napier, which is famous for it's Art Deco buildings. There was an earthquake here in the early 1930s that destroyed the town and so afterwards when the town was being rebuilt the style of architecture of the time was Art Deco.   Sadly as in so many other places all over the world there are some modern atrocities but it has more character than many of the places we have been to in NZ.  Jo told us we would like Napier … and we did!

The weather today has been very hot and humid but later in the afternoon the wind got quite strong and it has cooled down this evening.  We did actually feel a bit too hot and then we remembered what it was like in the UK before we left!!!

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