I wake up just before dawn, but don’t feel to go outside yet. I don’t want to miss the sunrise though and I open the backdoor of my minivan. It’s nice to have your bed right next to the ocean. From my bed I wait for the sunrise. It’s always a beautiful moment when the first light comes over the horizon. When the sun is rising I do actually get outside to take some pictures from the beach. I get dressed and have breakfast in front of the beach. Before I start driving, I decide to sit at the beach for a while. It’s a beautiful peaceful morning.

The other day I had seen a nice looking coffee place on the edge of the city and that’s where I want to go this morning. I order a cappuccino and do some writing and reading. The coffee house looks out over the ocean and is a perfect place to sit down for a while. They don’t have wifi though and I want to catch up on some e-mail and news, so after finishing reading I decide to move to another place.

In my search for a free parking spot downtown I find a beautiful little park with a man made waterfall. There is a pond and there are many flowers. I walk through the park and climb a few rocks to the waterfall before I walk further downtown. It’s again a bright sunshiny day, it seems that this part of the country has better weather and that Napier is a sunshiny city. I find another coffee place, but again they have no Wifi so I go back to my favourite place. I get a free coffee again, because I have a full stamp card, so that’s nice. I update the blog and my e-mail and then get a text from Chelsea that I can also work at a desk in their office, that’s better than one of the small coffee tables and so I move again. The office is nice, it’s a webdesign agency and they have a desk in the corner free for me. I catch up with e-mails and things for work and do some programming for myself. It’s interesting how when I’m at the computer, I can completely forget where I am, especially when I’m contacting people in the Netherlands. When I lookup from my screen, I remember that I’m at the other side of the world. The people at the office leave and I say goodbye to my friend.

I decide to go to the Irish pub again, since I had a good time there yesterday. I read again for a while and then go online and discover that you can get a free audiobook at Audible.com if you register for a trial period (and you can cancel immediately again). I’ve already listened to an audiobook during the road trip and it’s great when you have to drive for a couple of hours to be able to listen to a book. It’s just a different experience than only listening to music.

After a visit to the Iris pub I do some groceries for the coming days, because I’ll be traveling further again. I’m also almost out of clean clothes and didn’t find a place to do laundry, so I go to Warehouse, that’s the New Zealand version of Walmart or a bit like the store we have in the Netherlands called Action. They sell almost everything, so I also find myself some socks and underwear. Now I have enough for a week again. Enough food, enough clothes and tomorrow I’ll get some gas so everything is covered for a couple of days. When I walk through downton and it starts to get dark, I see that they’ve hung Christmas lights in the trees. It reminds me that back home it’s getting winter soon. Funny how it’s the exact opposite here and that the weather finally seems to get better here. In the evening I feel like watching an episode of Friends, just some simple laughing. I’ve got all seasons with me, so that’s nice. I find that a combination of activities during the day and some entertainment like movies or series in the evening gives a nice balance while traveling. I think I could stay in Napier longer, but at this campsite you’re only allowed to stay two days in a row and it’s also about time to heading North West again, so tomorrow the road trip continues.