Working In Napier

Here I am in lovely sunny Napier! The drive down last night was pretty uneventful apart from terrible pouring rain just before I got into Taupo. It was so bad I nearly had to pull over, but instead I just putted along at 40km/h hoping I was on the road! I did pass a couple of cars that had pulled over though, no matter how fast the windscreen wipers were going you couldn't see more than about 10 metres in front.

I'm staying at the Masonic which isn't quite as flash as it's little blurb makes it out to be. My room is quite small and pokey but there is a nice lounge area that looks out over Marine Parade which is where I'm sitting as I type this. It's really lovely, there's a nice ocean breeze but it's not too cold and I can watch the world go by, though that seems to happen pretty slowly in Napier. I also seem to be pretty much the only one staying in the hotel, I've only seen 2 other guests. Maybe they're all just living in their room.

I went to meet Tony at the Port of Napier today, I was a bit late because the roller door to hotel car park wouldn't open. So I had to walk back to the hotel (it's a 3 minute walk to the car park) and get another door opener. This didn't work either so I gave up and got Tony to come and pick me up. I'm assured that the roller door has been fixed and if I need to get my car out I won't have any problems. I think it's cute that the hotel car park is so far away, but at least it's secure.
The port is a pretty interesting place, Tony has a whole floor pretty much to himself. All the time these huge forklifts drive right by the window, it's very freaky the first few times that it happens, especially when you know that 2 people have been squished by them in the last 12 months. I think we're pretty safe though in our little brick fortress.

Thankfully they have a whole deptartment concerned with the welfare of your marijuana cigarettes! Good to know someone's looking after our reefers.

I'm going to give Sarah's partents a ring a little later, maybe met up with them tomorrow night for dinner. Wednesday night I'm going out to Tony's place for his famous rib, he served them up when I was out there at Christmas time and they rightly deserve to be called famous!

Tim