Cold Mountain

Helen: 2 hours ago, this would have been a very different post. 2 hours ago it was wet, windy, cloudy and miserable. Now the sun is shining and 3 majestic mountains have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One of them (Mt Ngarahoe) was used as Mt Doom in LoTR. Looks spectacular – conical with some snow at the top. Hopefully we'll get to go walking right past the mountains later in the week...but we need to 'pop' up to Whakatane first to get C's right arm finished by a highly regarded Maori sculptor/ta moko artist. By then I'm sure the clouds will be back and the mountains will be hiding again. Actually, they're volcanoes, not just any old mountains. The hotel is full of signs of what to do in case of an emergency – thankfully, we're at NZ's highest hotel, so if there is a sudden rush of molten lava, or, apparently more likely, lots of mud, we should be safe!

Don't worry, we haven't gone all up market – we just found some vouchers on the back of a supermarket receipt and so could afford to stay in a hotel for the night. We got here at 10am (the last hostel we were staying in was miserably cold and unfriendly – C was meant to book somewhere else, but phoned the wrong people, as we discovered at 11pm the night before when we turned up where we thought we were staying only to find no room at the inn – oh well, 15 minutes before that I'd sent us to totally the wrong village in search of our accommodation – needless to say we were both tired and grumpy when we finally got to the right place in the dead of night in the middle of a rain storm!) Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, we got here (the hotel) at 10am and they let us have our room early, so we sat here, practically on top of their heater, using the hairdryer, watching the telly, bouncing on the comfy bed and drinking hot chocolate. Doesn't take much to keep us happy :)

But I've skipped a bit – need to tell you about Napier and Hastings – Napier was a bit of a disappointment to be honest – we had been expecting amazing Art Deco everywhere...but it wasn't even as grand as Glasgow. We did see kiwis at the National Aquarium though (wonderfully cute fluffy looking nocturnal birds that look more like rabbits with long legs and a beak than birds), Hastings was much the same, dreary town centre that sprawls out rather than up – totally lacking in character. Good baked potatoes though, and a really friendly tattooist (pink hair, fairy skirt, army boots) who did a bit on C's arm (she copied a linear design he'd photographed in the Auckland Museum from a Fijian artifact – a head rest that chiefs could lie on at night and not mess up their hair dos).

We spent our time in Napier staying with old friends from London (thank you loads Sasha and Roger) and their young daughter Arabella who's 4. Our week with them was another eye opening window on family life – ballet shows, gym shows, birthday parties with small girls in pink fairy outfits, demands for ice cream for breakfast, chocolate treats for tea and Arabella's favourite dummy at all hours. Exhausting! We thought we'd spend lots of time recovering in front of Sasha and Roger's TV – having not had one for so long we thought it would be a welcome luxury. Not so! NZ TV is worse than we remember British TV – every morning they have an hour and a half of 'infomercials' – dreadful programmes sponsored by some company or other trying to sell you their wears – everything from acne cream to pants that keep your tummy and bottom in to super-dooper-makes-the-supper-for-you kitchen whizzers. I could feel the life leaving me as I watched them – but it still took a surprising amount of will power to turn the idiot box off!

Anyway, surburbia is behind us and we are now in the mountains – all good. Will write again soon

H&Cxx