Now on the north island we drove north from Wellington in the morning along the Kapiti Coast.
Unfortunately we didn’t have any time to spend in Wellington, but it looked super cute. A really compact city of about 400,000 that is the capital of New Zealand and is the world’s most southern capital city!
The topography of the north island is very different than the south island. Mountains aren’t as dramatic, lanscapes are a bit more subtle but retain their own beauty.
The road we drove was up in the mountains and down in the flat lands.
Along the way we continued to see sheep farms. The sheep on the north island seemed less spooked by people and cars.
Cute, aren’t they?
Our first stop for the day was a town called Napier. Napier was destroyed by an earthquake in the early 1930’s and when they rebuilt it they leveraged the architecture of the time which was art deco. So now Napier has this treasure of art deco buildings in their downtown.
And this beauty.
The little downtown area was cute!
Napier is situated right on Hawke’s Bay which has volcanic ash beaches.
After a sandwich stop downtown we took the short drive to Lake Taupo in the middle of the north island which is our stop for the night. Lake Taupo is New Zealand’s largest lake.
At Lake Taupo we had a room booked at the Hilton which sits right at the lakeshore. Here is the view from our room.
And here is a view into our room from the terrace.
It’s the perfect room for this evening!
