Today, I got what I came to Napier for. We drove about a half-hour south of town to Gannet Safaris Overland. There, we boarded a bus with about a dozen other people—mostly English and Dutch—and headed out toward some cliffs overlooking Hawke’s Bay. There, we found three colonies of gannets, each numbering well into the hundreds.
The gannet babies born there wait for the parents to come back from the sea each day, so they can be fed. Later this year, these babies will leave this cliff and make their first flight utilizing a wing span of up to six feet. They’ll jump off the cliff and fly more than a thousand miles to Australia, where they’ll spend two or three years. Then they’ll come back to these cliffs to raise their own families. We were able to stand within just a few feet of the birds. I took 411 pictures in 40 minutes.
Now about that small world. When we visited our son David last August at the restaurant he manages in Boulder, we met a young woman working there named Bridget. She had an unusual accent.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“New Zealand!” she replied.
“Where in New Zealand?”
“Napier.”
“We’re going there in February!”
And that’s how we came to be having lunch at the home of Bridget’s mom Angie today. She lives not far from the Gannet Safari Overland office. She greeted us warmly, had us in for a chat and a lovely lunch.
After our nice visit with our new friend, we came back to our hotel to relax. The view from our balcony didn’t make that any harder.
If you’re ever planning a trip to New Zealand, I recommend adding Napier to your itineary. Especially if it’s during the Art Deco Festival.