Hastings City New Zealand.

Hastings.

The city of Hastings is about 15 km inland from Napier. The land is flat, although Te Mata Peak is very high and close by, the result of a fault line that runs through Hawkes Bay. The whole of Hawkes Bay is prone to earthquakes, and the buildings generally are well built to survive even strong quakes.

 

Huge areas of Hastings are orchards. The apples are ripe ready for harvest.

Many orchards are protected by high hedges. Hawkes Bay can be very windy,

 The city center is rather nice with lot of flower pots in the main streets. It’s been an odd experience going round these towns again. We used to think they were metropolisis, if there is such a word, of the highest order, busy traffic and hard to drive around. The locals still feel this way. After living on the Gold Coast, and especially after living in China, these places are a bit like little villages.
 

Flowers all along the city centre streets.

Hastings city centre.

The main industry is fruit and vegetable production. You can buy from the orchard gates and it is very fresh and cheap. We saw sweet corn, 10 for $4. Heinz Watties was born in Hastings, by a Mr Watties. He started a back yard business canning fruit. It became very successful and gradually became a huge factory selling to the world. Eventually Goodman Fielder bought into it, and now Heinz is part of the conglomerate called Heinz Watties.  I used to work in that factory in 1963, where we were on the peach line and tomato line. Their tomato sauce is the best sauce you will find in the whole world. It was used in their spaghetti and baked beans too, and every New Zealand child was bought up on these foods. Nothing else tastes quite like it.

When our children were young, I, along with most of my friends bottled huge amounts of fruit and vegetables each summer, giving us good healthy food for the winter. The most I ever did was about 650 jars one summer. Peaches, pears, fruit salad, tomato and plum sauce, tomatoes, beetroot, beans, asparagus, all kinds of berries went into jars for the winter. One of the fruits that grows prolifically in New Zealand is the feijoa. I have never seen one in Australia.