Weekend in the Naki

Gidday Mates,

Whats going down on the other side of the earth? Over here in the land of the long white cloud (Aoteroa), things are going as good as ever. Last weekend brought us to many more cool new places and sights. On Friday night we hit up the local pub in Owhango for some New Zealand piss. Yes, that is what some of the locals call alcoholic beverages. We didn’t get too crazy and were home quite early.

Saturday we headed west on the Forgotten World Highway towards Stratford. The drive was quite cool. Lush, fern-filled forests lined the rugged hills as we twisted this way and that. The road got quite narrow and became gravel as we came through Morgan’s gorge.

We took a small detour off the “beaten path” to check out one of the largest waterfalls on the North Island, Damper Falls. We walked through a pasture that was filled with ewes and recently born lambs as are many fields these days. Once we got to the trees there was the wooden walkway that we have come accustomed to. The view was outstanding and gave a certain sense of awe as we observed without a human in sight or within earshot.

Damper Falls (74 meters high)

After taking the view all in, we jumped back in our van and headed back to the forgotten highway. Not too far down the road, we were taken by the sight of Mount Taranaki aka Mount Egmont another one of New Zealand’s volcanic mountains. Roberta thinks it is just awesome that all of a sudden there is a large, single mountain sticking up from the earth. Definitely different from those mountains she could see growing up. We weaved our way through the dairy cow-filled pastures to Egmont National Park. Roberta also loved. At the National Park we checked out Dawson Falls and headed out on our second hike of the day to check out the Wilkie’s pools. It brought us through the Goblin Forest and closer to Mount Taranaki.

Mount Taranaki in the distance

Mount Taranaki

Dawson Falls

Goblin Forest

Wilke's Pools

We then carried on to New Plymouth located right on the Tasman Sea. We had ourselves a great “tea” a.k.a. supper and rolled on in to the local holiday park for a night’s sleep. Yes we finally spent the night in our van. It was easy to get to sleep that night as the ocean waves carried us into our dreams.

Sunday we were awoken by the blistering hot sun. It definitely has a lot more kick near the hole in the ozone, but apparently the hole is getting smaller. We decided we would take in the famous coastal walkway here.  The sand was brilliantly black from the breakdown of volcanic rock. After checking out the surfing competition, we decided to hire some bikes so we could take in more of the walkway. Few things feel good when they hit you in the face but ocean mist is one of them.

We decided to drive to the wharf instead of walking there. On the way, we noticed a path up one of the volcanic outcroppings- Paritutu Rock- and we couldn’t resist the temptation to climb it. After a steep ascent we were rewarded with one of the most spectacular views.

Mount Taranaki was covered by clouds unfortunately

Mount Ruapehu and Mount Ngarahue in the distance

After going to the I-Site, we decided that we would go check out Pukekura Park. It is known around New Zealand as being one of the nicest in the country. Roberta was quick to comment on how it put Central Park in New York to shame. There were definitely many beautiful plants. After a couple hours of aimless wandering, we had to make our 3 hour venture back to our base.

Roberta’s note: It was not aimless wandering, it was a beautiful garden and I spent the entire time loving the scenery, the flowers, the ponds, the ancient trees and the waterfalls. And at the end I got ice cream. Score!
Over and Out