Xmas Hols : Taranaki

We used the obligatory office closure over Christmas to explore a new part of the country. The Taranaki region is the bit that sticks out on the western side of the North Island and is dominated by Mount Taranki, also called Mount Egmont. If the weather cooperates you can see it from just about anywhere in the region - quite an impressive sight. Circling Mount Taranki is the 'Surf Highway', so called because virtually every side road off of it, leads to a beach with surfable waves.

Our trip started with a LONG drive to New Plymouth, with a couple of stops along the way to stretch our legs. The first walk took in the Mangapohue land bridge - a stunning limestone double archway, complete with a field of fossilised oysters nearby. And later on the Marokopa Falls - one of the most picturesque on the island. But one of our favourite walks to date was the Ruakuri Tunnels walk - the path zigzags back and forth between tunnels, bridges and viewpoints, following streams that seem to flow in circles.

An AirBnb in New Plymouth itself was our home for a couple of days giving us a chance to explore the town. A coastal walkway runs the length of the town and is where a lot of the town comes to stroll, bike and roller blade. A beach also runs the length of the city and includes two well known surf spots.

We were lucky enough to be in town during the Festival of Lights - where the wonderful Pukekura Park is lit up with both light and art installations and a different band plays each night - all free! The town also contains some great street art/ graffiti, some of which is shown below. On our last night here we climbed up Paritutu to watch the sunset with some Fush and Chups. A lot more difficult then we expected; the steep track quickly gave way to steps, which themselves soon gave way to a chain assisted scramble the top. Well worth it though, although with the light quickly fading we did not hang around as it the walk would have been very interesting in the dark.

We then followed the surf highway around the coast to the small town of Opunake where we camped for a few nights. Being the Christmas holidays the campsite was full of Kiwis camping Kiwi style - small towns of huge tents, complete with sofas and fridge freezers! A great white sand beach with a couple of nice cliff top walks at each end; we managed to get in some body boarding and had dinner every night on the dunes at sunset.

This time around, the summit walk was beyond us, but we did a couple of shorter walks on the slopes of Mount Taranki, one of which took in the 'Goblin Forest' - you can see why from the photos below. And of course, no NZ tramp is complete without a waterfall...

The journey home back to Auckland took in the 'Forgotten Highway' so called I think because the route passes through several towns which boomed during a brief mining rush, only to become virtually deserted once it ended. The road is only 150km long but took over 3 hours to complete as the roads were both hilly and very twisty - lots of 30kmh corners! A great drive, although it would have been better in a car somewhat sportier than ours; however there was not much to see along the way. The highlight was a short tramp along the ridge line of one of the many bush clad hills. Great walk with lots of funghi.

Our final stop on the way home was the small fishing village of Kawhia where we dug our very own hot pools out of the black sand at low tide.

Auckland Zoo

Our view on zoos changed recently after listening to a talk by Dr Jane Goodall - in short a good zoo is an important contributor to the survival of many species. Not just keeping some alive in captivity, but enabling research to better help those in the wild. The zoo itself was well laid out with enclosures which seem to have been well thought out; lot's of trees and picnic areas made it a pleasant space to spend the afternoon...