Four Nights at Erickson Road Park

Our return to the NZMCA Erickson Road Park was a pleasant surprise.  I remembered coming to see this place when it was newly opened - a bare, windswept area it was back then.  But now it is covered in lush green grass, with many trees planted around the perimeter.

Parking bays have now been created in the park, with gardens planted at either side of each bay. Water, rubbish collection and a clothesline are available,  and a social room is available for gatherings.  There has obviously been a lot of work done, making the grounds look very attractive indeed. 

We arrived about lunchtime on Tuesday, and luckily managed to get three adjacent sites.

The six of us took ourselves out for a meal at the at the Napier RSA.  A very nice meal, reasonably priced too.  Oh dear, forgot to take photos of the smorgasbord meal.  Lovely hot ham and beef, lots of veggies, and a good selection of desserts too.

BIrdwoods was on the agenda, a return visit for some of us but two of our group had never been there before.  The sculpture garden is free to wander through, and we could say hello to the elephants and the hippo keeping cool in the pool.  Birdwoods imports sculptures from Zimbabwe and has other interesting items available for sale in the gallery.

The on-site sweet shop is a real delight, chock full of jars of boiled sweets to tempt us.  We bought some delicious raspberry drops to sustain us on car journeys.  The huge real fruit ice-creams were $5 each and certainly took a bit of licking to get to the end, trying to get them finished before we ended up in a melted mess.

Not far away was the Arataki Honey Visitors Centre, a must for Robin to refill his honey jars.  The place was packed with visitors from a cruise ship in port, all making a beeline for the honey tasting station.  We had to be careful when we parked the car not to get into the bee flight path as we walked to the centre.

The Saturday morning market was much smaller than expected and took hardly any time at all to look through.  After a few purchases we walked through the very pretty and historic  Clive Square.  The gardens were formed in 1884, after the area had previously been  used as a sports ground and village green.  After the devastating 1931 earthquake, the square was used as a temporary shopping centre known as Tin Town.  A friendly local took some photos for us.

Before we headed back to camp we drove by the beautiful National Tobacco Co. building.   Built in 1933 after the 1931 Napier earthquake it is a blend of Art Nouveau and Chicago School styles, influenced by the work of Louis Sullivan, famous for his Chicago buildings of 1880s-90s.  This building is a registered Category 1 by the Historic Places Trust, and is now used by a furniture company.

Summer has certainly arrived in Hawkes Bay with temperatures in the late 20s and sometimes hovering over 30 degrees.  According to those with thermometers, it was much hotter inside our vans, even with the windows and door open, so we are pleased we all have sun awnings to sit under.  Gemma enjoys being outside and has found that it is nice and cool under the caravan.  Or if she is inside, stretched flat out on the floor seems to be the way to go.

My sister Kathleen and her family live in Hastings and we spent some time with them on our last day in the area.  We had a good catch up and had a meal out at the National Service Club.

Kathleen, Lisa and Dennis – rellies from Hastings

We enjoyed our final evening having coffee and a chat with our traveling companions seated outside in the lovely evening air.  Gemma was ecstatic when we returned back to the caravan,  after being on her own for some hours and after gobbling down her late dinner came outside with us too.  There were plenty of chair legs to get her lead tangled around, exciting smells in the cool air, and people going past to keep an eye on.