Today, now very keen to transfer to our hotel in the centre of Napier, we said goodbye to Mangapapa, on yet another blue sky day (at this point we had begun to think we had been pretty lucky with our weather for our 8 weeks exploring NZ😎🇳🇿)
Despite some roadworks, the now familiar approach seemed to welcome us back…
We parked up closish to our hotel, noticing how out of place our Ute was in comparison to some of the other cars there…
…with Julie struggling to choose her favourite too…😉
… although, as we lunched al fresco (again 😎), I had no similar difficulty…😉
After checking in to our hotel at c.2 pm we set about trying to book a place at one of the many dinner dance functions for Saturday evening; fortunately, after a string of “Sorry, sold out…” responses, we finally managed to secure the last 2 tickets for one of them…phew!
Next task was to seek out an appropriate Art Deco clothing place where we could hire/buy something “fitting”, in both senses of the word!
We eventually found a “pop up” shop where we were spoilt for choice…and where the staff knew their stock … job done 😉
NZ is the only place in the world where Pounamu – a greenstone – is found…
…and is of particular significance in Maori culture…
… so we had to “investigate” further…
Apparently it’s bad luck to buy any item made of Pounamu for yourself and should only be received as a gift… so Julie gifted me a pendant and I gave her a bracelet too…
It was then time to see whether our outfits for the evening were up to “Puttin’ on the Ritz” standards, cue Fred Astaire,..💃🏽🕺🏽
We had only been minutes out of our hotel when we realized the bar had been set quite high…
Despite that, we were stopped in our tracks several times, by other party goers wanting to take our photo; and it would have been totally out of kilter with the spirit of the festival not to have obliged them…
Julie, in particular, seemed to draw the attention of similarly attired ladies wanting a photo op…
…then got photo-bombed by other ladies not wanting to miss out…
All she needed now was to choose our car for the evening…of which there were many!
Buoyed by this experience she became bolder in asking others to join her too…
However, these wee fellas were not fooled by her charm and preferred to chew on their dinosaurs! 🦖🦖
We had decided to spend the evening at the iconic open air venue, The Soundshell, on Marine Parade…
…but before we headed into that arena we joined hundreds of others on the adjacent beach as an aerobatic display by old aircraft “took off”…
This was a pretty breathtaking thing to watch so we relaxed our neck muscles with a stroll along the beach, only to discover a very surprising fact about NZ’s involvement in WW2…
Reflecting on that we grabbed some paella, served freshly made on the beach, then moved back into the Soundshell arena where a series of top class live acts played some great foot-tapping music🎶
After testing out our own dancin’ shoes at this superb venue…
I discovered that not everyone I asked was keen for me to stomp on their toes😉🕺🏽
We ended our first full day at the Art Deco Festival with “one for the road” in another outdoor venue…
…what you can do, and not have to wear, in a Southern Hemisphere summer like this 😎
BTDU 