In Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, the powers that be have created miles and miles of limestone or concrete paths, for bicycles and walkers.
Miles of them.
Right through the wetlands and the farms and down the beaches and through the country. You can walk and walk.
Tourists and locals, able and disabled alike can enjoy the absolute peace of this glorious place without the presence of cars or four wheelers or motorbikes. Just the quiet. Nice easy walking. No fees or doormen, or campers or gates, or fear. Some start out along the roads or railway lines then veer off into the country. Just wonderful peaceful walking. If I lived back here now I would be on these boardwalks every day.
The beach is still a magical place. Though there is now an explosion of beach flowers along the waterfront. It is wonderful.
Along the foreshore in Napier, New Zealand are a series of concrete bunkers. 
These were gun emplacements built during World War Two when the threat of invasion from the Japanese was a very real and incredibly scary possibility – for a little country such as New Zealand. (There are other coastal strongholds that are even older from the 1800’s when it was thought the Russians were going to take over – but we have never been invaded, not in an aggressive way anyway. ) The bunker we found was from WWII.
When we were kids these were over grown with grasses and beach trees and were the hang outs of less than savoury characters. Though we still climbed all over and inside them making up our own war games when the unsavoury characters were gone. Against our mothers express commands I might add.
We are still playing.
Good morning!
Today is a glorious day. Since the wedding it has warmed up beautfully, of course, so we are going to be showing our visitors even more of Hawkes Bay today. I will be showing you too. When I post tomorrow.
I almost made a terrible error yesterday. I forgot that the blog fed straight to my Face Book page and the bride asked us not to put any pictures of her wedding on Face Book. This is why the images of the day were so subtle. But still. One does not want to get in trouble with ones new daughter in law! So I took off the feed to facebook yesterday. When the ban on photos is lifted I will go back and put some beautiful wedding pictures back in. And today we are back to normal blogging protocols.
Tomorrow we drive up to Castle Point to stay in another wee house. But this one has no modern connections at all. So I will be gone for those two days. Then off to Wellington we go. But today is ALL Hawkes Bay.
I hope you have a lovely day too.
See you tomorrow!
Love celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
44 responses to “walking the dog”
Photos number 5 and 8 are incredible. Great POV and just excellent all around.
I think that silhouette image is one of the best shots you’ve ever taken.
Oh, that last picture! Absolute peace and quiet. What a treasure – soak it all in!
(We have concrete bunkers in Galveston, too! Some do go back as far as the 1800’s designed to protect against pirates and invasions (were the Russians really invading everywhere? Odd). Many are still preserved on the Bolivar Peninsula state park – where we were planning to go Sunday, but the weather got bad – but someday!)
Completely enjoyed walking along
be happy, for yur surely deserve it.
Love,
ViV
I have a sense of celebration just reading about yours. Thank you for sharing your beautiful sights and experiences.
That last photo is stunning C. Is the couple that the dog is walking the newlyweds? 🙂 So beautiful there…and did you stay in that charming little beach cottage in photo 4? I thought wee Russian Terrier was a Newfoundland at first…he is adorable!
Gorgeous! NZ is the top on my list for places I must get to one day, hopefully sooner than later! Lovely photos as always.
The beautiful spring photos so exude peace I hope is enveloping you too. Am still looking at the seaside daisy pics of two days ago as a slope in my garden has also just burst into life with them : ‘Celi flowers’ 🙂 ! Oh, when I moved to Australia as a youngster there were still many signs of fear of the Japanese invasion . . . we were allowed in because of the supposed ‘populate or perish’ attitude!! . . . and yesterday did feel like the proverbial fool rushing in when I enquired about photos suddenly missing ere working out the probable [and true] scenario for myself : my apologies [but loved what I saw ere it went 🙂 !] . . . . enjoy home, hope the weather co-operates!!
Today felt very wonderful as you were describing it all.
I would like to go there one of these days , it looks divine. Enjoy your old home and loved ones.
I really enjoyed our walk today! Thanks for taking me along! 🙂
Isn’t it wonderful when a community — better still country — realizes the beauty of it’s natural state and sets aside land for public access? NZ went one step further, so it seems, making it accessible to foot traffic and kept the motoirzed variety out-of-bounds. In my mind, that’s real Progress.
How lovely to see your stunning photos. I miss places like this – just to enjoy the peace and quiet is heaven 🙂
Gorgeous photos. Is that the bride?
>
This is the next bride, they get married in January. c
Bees, beaches, boardwalks and bunkers – what fun. I can feel how much you are at home in this land. You are so relaxed and settled in already, and you feel so close. Have a wonderful time offline. What a treat!