28-29 November 2010 - , NAPIER

Chose a camp outside the city at Bayview.  (Bayview Snapper)  .Nice camp though quite busy.  Nice facilities, good to catch up with laundry etc.  As with many of the camps we have visited, there are quite a number of permanent residents in caravans.  We wonder if the credit crunch has created some of this - most of them are retired people, possible they lost money in the investment companies who went under???  The camp is right beside the beach, but like most of the beaches along this coast, they are very long with no trees and very surfy.  Not interesting to walk along, so we opted to cycle the very long walk/cycle track which goes right into Napier and far beyond.  Great exercise but not particularly interesting.  Next morning we went to visit Judy Sutton for morning tea.   Nice to catch up with her but poor lady is about to go into hospital for a cancer operation.   Drove into Napier city as we thought we should do a little Xmas shopping and post some cards etc.  Had lunch out for a change.  Left camp next morning headed for south of the city to the Clive River Reserve where we could freedom camp.  I had been here before many years ago and it's a nice spot right on the river.  We were the only ones there till late in the afternoon when a couple of other motorhomes arrived.  There was plenty to watch here as there was a boat club just up river, and an endless stream of water craft going past.  A large waka obviously taking young school students for training or cultural experiences, numerous rowers in single, doubles, fours and eights, kayakers, dinghies etc.   I expected to see skiers as it is actually a ski club but they didn't eventuate.  We discovered the bike/walking tracks which continue on from the other side of Napier to this area, so cycled  that afternoon which went past wetlands and along the coast.  More black swans everywhere - I thought they were supposed to be dying out, but certainly not in the central North Island.   Next morning we cycled about 8 kms along the stopbanks ending up at a lovely little river reserve.  Of course we then had to cycle back, all very flat but a great way to see the wonderful fields of agriculture etc, (the back door of the area).