Wellington – Napier. Day 6

Friday 28^th March 2025

Day 6  Wellington – Napier

Time to farewell Wellington and drive on north through Lower and Upper Hutt towards Napier. After breakfast in a local’s café in Upper Hutt we continued on for several hours to Napier.  Due to some road closures, we were forced to take this route and it turned out to be rather a hair-raising drive (for me as I was driving) up over the Remutaka Range to Greytown.  Narrow, winding roads with lots of traffic and many large trucks including plenty of fully loaded timber jinkers. On arrival into Greytown I stopped at the first café and Geoff bought me a coffee and took over the driving.  From our quick glance at Graytown it looks like a great little place to come back to as did the next town of Cartertown.  We continued on our way finally arriving at Napier at peak hour (3:30pm) on a Friday afternoon!  Settled into the Art Deco Masonic Hotel on Marine Parade.  I think they are trading a lot on their location.  In most instances they have decorated the hotel and rooms appropriately but the modern take on dining rooms, surroundings and menus leave a lot to be desired.  We ended up dining on pizza washed down with a glass of red which was tasty.