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| Mount Taranaki outside New Plymouth |
The best part of New Plymouth for us was visiting the huge volcano Mount Taranaki, which is about a 20 minute drive from town. There are several hikes to do here, ranging from a half hour to several hours or overnight. It’s also a ski resort in winter, although we didn’t get high enough up to see any of the runs or lifts.
We spent the better part of a day hiking around here - as with most mountains, the higher you go, the more the vegetation changes. The view of New Plymouth and the surrounding towns goes on forever from up here.
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Maori Totem pole at the visitor centre. They
used paua shells for the eyes - kind of hard to see here.
Waaaaay off in the distance is New Plymouth. |
From there, we headed down to Oakura, the black sand beach which seems to go for miles around most of the perimeter of the city. Black sand is lovely, but when it sticks to your feet and winds up on the white carpet in your B&B, it’s not so pretty. Fortunately, it vacuums up well :-)
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Oakura Beach in New Plymouth. Our AirBnB
was just above the funny pointy bit of land on the right. |
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| Black sand beach with a little heart rock |
Our second day here, we drove out to the small town of Taranaki to see what life is like outside the city (New Plymouth isn’t that big, but it is a city). We found, again, a nice beach, a big river and lots of hiking trails and beach walking. We’d had enough of driving around, so returned home early to prepare for our journey the next day along The Forgotten Highway.
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Fishing from the beach - a scene repeated pretty much
everywhere in New Zealand. |
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Main street, Taranaki. There are a lot of small towns like this, and
I feel like I'm in a 1960s time warp whenever we drive through them. |
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| Weeds on the side of the highway! |
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| They have very pretty weeds on the sides of the highways |
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| Typical wood home style here in NZ. |
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| Roadside landscape - hills with cows. |
The Forgotten Highway is another of Trevor’s recommendations - apparently the number 1 scenic highway in New Zealand, or at least the north island. It did not disappoint. The highway was one big switchback after another through some of the most beautiful volcanic ranges. There is so much colour in the landscape - greens, golds, browns, blues, yellows. And the hills are rounded and jagged and rocky and grassy. There are huge cliffs and gently sloping hills.
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| Along the Forgotten Highway |
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| It really looks like this. Those white dots are sheep. |
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| At the top of one of many passes |
About halfway along this stunning drive, we came to a town called Whangamomona. Trevor told us we must stop here, so we did. It’s a funny little place that decided to make itself a republic a while back due to some differences in opinion with the national government. So there’s a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour happening here - you can buy a passport to the republic in the local pub. They hold an annual republic day in January (if they feel like it) and have events such as gumboot throwing, whip-cracking and hold-ups and shoot-outs. A president may or may not be elected and it seems that often an animal of some sort wins the race. Click this link if you'd like to learn more: Republic of Whangamomona It's quite entertaining.
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| Arrived at Whangamomona |
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| The Post Office - right out of the wild west! |
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The famed Whangamomona Hotel - where all the
political action happens! |
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| Looking down at the town crossroads |
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| Possibly the current mayor - I'm not sure. |
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| Ummmmm, ok then? |
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| Love the tagline! |
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Leaving Whangamomona. I'm glad I'm not driving because
it's hard to tear my eyes away from the scenery. |
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We stopped at this river to have a picnic - it's a historic spot where
travellers and miners could catch a boat down the river back
when there wasn't a road. It wasn't cheap and could take up to 8 hours. |
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| If you zoom in, you can see the ferry schedule and charges. |
After about 5 hours of driving (which would have taken 2 hours on a straight highway), we arrived in Hamilton where we found a lovely little hobby farm AirBnB to stay at. We have our own cottage, patio and bbq in a beautiful garden with lemon, plum and peach trees amongst others.
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| Our cottage on a "lifestyle block" near Hamilton. |
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| Flowering silk tree in the garden |
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| Silk flowers close up - stunning! |
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| The main house. There's a pool and hot tub off to the left |
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The garden area outside our cabin. Plum and peach trees - yum!
We were welcome to help ourselves. |
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| Loved this horse sculpture on a fence made of corrugated aluminum. |
To give an idea of some of the names here:
In Napier we had to pass by Pipi road and Kuku road to get to TukiTuki!
And in Hamilton, we drove past Beer Road to Pukemoremore Road. Have a little fun with those!
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| Pukemoremore? |
Our first full day in Hamilton area, we went to the Hamilton Gardens at the suggestion of our hosts. Am I ever glad we did - spectacular! If you ever want to get ideas for garden landscaping themes, go there! It’s a wonderful maze of different themed gardens that are cleverly joined together by connecting paths and ‘houses’. One is Japanese, another Chinese, Indian, Italian Renaissance, Maori, tropical, English and so on and so on. Each one is its own little paradise. It’s hard to do it justice with pictures, but I tried. Here’s a link - truly beautiful and well worth the visit if you’re in Hamilton area. Hamilton Gardens
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| Entrance to the Chinese Garden |
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| Wisteria in the Chinese garden |
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| Bamboo tree wall exiting the Chinese garden |
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| Pavilion details in the Indian Garden |
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| Indian Garden |
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| Roman Garden |
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| Maori Garden Surround |
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| Vegetable garden in the Maori Garden |
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| Fence in the Maori Garden |
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| Decorations in the Maori Garden - Paua Shell eyes |
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| Maori Garden |
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| Tropical Garden |
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| Flowers in the Tropical Garden |
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Ladies washroom in the gardens - full-length
window at the end makes it look very nice. |
Hamilton has a lovely little lake in the middle of the city called Lake Rotorua,. We decided to walk the 4 km around it. Unfortunately, it’s infected with some sort of algae that makes people sick, so there were no kids swimming or animals enjoying the water. The water lilies seem to be taking over at one end. The birds don't seem to have any complaint with it - plenty of them around, as well as a couple of men 'sailing' their remote-controlled boats on the water. We enjoyed the walk and the different bird and plant life we saw as we walked. And it was good to get some exercise after a full day in the car yesterday.
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This bird is called a Pukeko. There were a number of
them around the lake. Funny feet. |
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| House above the lake was flying a Canadian flag. |
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| Loads of lilies on this lake. Pink, yellow, white |
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| Artistic Pukeko shot! |
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This is another 'weed' that grows everywhere here,
especially at the roadsides and lakesides |
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| This is an Australian Coot that lives at Lake Rotorua |
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| Lake Rotorua - nice pathway all around the lake, about 4 km |
The next day we drove out to the coast to a little town called Raglan. This is a very popular surfing area, and the town is very ‘beachy cool’ with lots of fun little surf shops and coffee shops. We drove out to the main surf beach, which is black sand, and goes for miles and miles. We walked several of those miles - for about 4 hours, watching surfers and aspiring surfers, and collecting shells and pictures. It was a gorgeous day - despite the hats and sunscreen, we did get a bit too much sun!
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| Cute. Let's stop for gas at g.a.s. |
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| More of the roadside 'weeds' |
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Surfers beach outside Raglan on the west coast. Black
sand for miles and miles and miles. Horses are allowed,
so it's best to keep your eyes peeled for black stuff that
isn't rocks. Not too bad though - there's a lot of beach here. |
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| Sand dunes on the beach. Notice how the wind has carved them |
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| Glen sitting on a rock sorting his shells |
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| This beach is where people come to learn to surf |
On the way back to Hamilton, we stopped off at Bridal Veil falls for a bit of a hike. It was 241 stairs down to the base of the falls if I recall correctly. Yes, we were counting! We met some Canadians from Langley on the way down and spent some time chatting with them. It was funny how relieved I felt to be hearing a Canadian 'accent' - I didn't have to work at listening so hard to what is being said. We had a laugh about that, and then carried on our separate ways.
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| The Pekoka river leading to Bridal Veil Falls |
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A beautiful spot - Bridal Veil Falls near Te Mata
between Raglan and Hamilton. 55 meters of
falling water. |
Tomorrow we leave for a week on the Coromandel Peninsula - one of the places that’s a popular holiday destination for New Zealanders. I’m looking forward to staying put for a few days. Moving around every two or three days is fun, but wearing after awhile.
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