Vintage 1930's City in New Zealand

You may think it unlikely and odd that in little ole NZ, the country sometimes forgotten off the world map, that there is a random as vintage 1930s city. Some think NZ is only full of sheep or grassy green meadows and hobbits...

Walking through Napier (in New Zealand) and overhearing Mexican and German accents I wonder how they managed to find themselves exploring just a small wee dot on the map. Considering we are well off the beaten track and lets face it a little frontier-ish (you will look out of place if you don't have jandals on, and ditch the blazer, you will not fit in at all). Cruise ships and NZ Tourism must be making some impact.

One thing that I really did notice when I came back from a Europe backpacking trip was how new New Zealand was. I was a bit of a classics nut at school so I always wanted to head to the more  history rich places of the world and soak it all in. It never occurred to me Kiwi's were still building our main infrastructure where other world cities are light years ahead. I was quite shocked about having to learn the metro system in just about every major city I went to in Europe - Wellington and Auckland are still developing a rail system. I guess we don't really have the population to really justify massive metro systems.

Imagine if New Zealand was populated and built at the Ancient Roman time! Ha imagine that! A Colosseum in Taupo and hippodrome in Christchurch. Oh dear! The mind is wandering :)

I guess what I am trying to make sense of, is that we do have interesting things happening in NZ and having a fully Art Deco city smack bang in the middle of it is pretty cool. The natural disaster of the 1931 earthquake was an awesome excuse to create a bit of a 'Phoenix from the ashes' and ensuring Hawkes Bay could rebuild in an even more modern and stylistic way. Because NZ is still so young and in comparison it occurred quite early in the history of making NZ, therefore had the opportunity to create a unique art capital of the world (exaggerating a bit?)! Although there are a few too many businesses or rest homes that are run/overrun by old fogies - it is fast becoming a awesome lifestyle to be in the bay.

Quite a unique place if I may say. Vintage baby!

Cheers,
Kiwi Dee xx

P.S. Kiwis are so frontier-ish that whenever I type in Jandals it keeps autocorrecting me to sandals, vandals or pandals!!

Extra PS. I realize New Zealand has the word 'new' in the word...