another public holiday

At 5:30 am on 25 April we travelled over to Napier for the 6:00 am Anzac Dawn Parade at the Napier Soundshell.  "The acronym ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, whose soldiers were known as Anzacs.  With symbolic links to the dawn landing at Gallipoli, a dawn ceremony has become a common form of Anzac Day remembrance since the 1920s." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anzac_Day)

I was a little girl the last time I went to a Dawn Parade (with my Nana in Wellington) and so this was a first for Nige and I together.  As Josh and Michelle were going to be coming for dinner that night we asked them to join with us for the dawn parade and then for breakfast instead.  Unfortunately there were no cafes open at 7:00 am on a public holiday so we ended up at McDonald's back in Hastings instead - which was just fine!

 A drive-by photo along Marine Parade in Napier of the sun rising!

Later in the day Nige and I headed up to Te Mata Peak since it was such a beautiful day.  (In case any of you are wondering, we drove up in our car - no walking or biking up the Peak for us, not on this day anyways!)

There were quite a few others also enjoying the sunny day and the scenic views from the Peak.

There were a bunch of paragliders up there too, and it was neat watching them soaring gracefully around the hills.