We took off towards Napier the day after the Crossing – with impressions still settling, and rather sore feet and legs. Every time we are on the road going somewhere, there are so many landscapes to take in, look-out points to stop at, and road cafés to find a tasty lunch at. The trip from Tongariro to Napier was no different.
At Napier we did a little Christmas shopping, and drove up to Te Mata Peak to see the view. We did our first load of laundry – so you see, not very busy.
Christmas was spent at a camp site just North of Napier with a nice view of Hawke’s Bay. Finding the Christmas spirit is hard here, and that is probably still an understatement. Still, to some of us it was pretty important to get an actual Christmas Eve, so we did the best we could – with barbecued steaks, potatoes, and greens to go with it. And a small plastic Christmas tree – though we ended up dancing around a palm tree in the camp site as well, entertaining half of the holiday park. We had brought physically small presents for the girls, but they were happy, and we had a very nice – and very different – evening. Lots of warm thoughts were sent to the family and friends in Denmark, celebrating more or less traditional Christmas 12 hours later.
One particular little guy has been travelling with us since the first night in the motorhome. I hope he had a good time as well.
