Waterfalls, a tunnel, and LOTS of beaches (Road Trip Part ll)

30 December 2008 (Tuesday)
We woke up in free accommodation to a decent rain; enough to make us half jog down to the store to say goodbye to our hosts at the Oparau Roadhouse. Bill had already given us advice on what scenic attractions to stop at, so we had a vague itinerary planned for the day.

Our first 3 stops were all in the first short bit of road between Te Anga and Waitomo Caves (which we were not visiting; too much tourism means you have to pay to go into all the glow worm caves).

First we stopped at Mangapohue Natural Bridge. It was part of an old cave/tunnel network. The roof has collapsed in all but one section, creating a natural bridge among a landscape of cave walls, stalactites, and stalagmites. It was pretty cool; dry from the rain, but wet from the water off the bridge ceiling.

We followed the track past the natural bridge and into a field of rocks. 35 million year old rocks, that began life as sand on the seafloor! Embedded in the limestone rocks were “giant oysters”; left as fossils. This was a surprise “extra” in the scenic tour, as it wasn’t listed on the map. We probably would have taken more pictures and pondered longer on the white inner shells embedded in the stone, if it hadn’t been blowing rain around! We hurried down the rest of the paddock track and back to the car.

We didn’t have long to dry off in the car before we were pulling up at the Piripiri caves. Where better to go on a rainy day then caves? They’re underground and dry; except for those drops off the ceiling.... oh and those pesky flash floods ;-). While it would have been fun on a dry, well prepared, day of dirt and bouldering, I was really only interested in getting to the dark bits of the cave so I could see glow worms!!!! We followed the markers on the boulders down to a rope assist and a “trail” to the next cave. From there, we could no longer see daylight. I also couldn’t see glow worms :( We moved into the cave a bit further, and still no glow worms. There was a group of 4 tourists coming down to this bottleneck, and neither of us was prepared to get that muddy. So, we headed back to the car.

We had another very short drive (5 minutes maybe) before we were pulling up at Marakopa Falls. It was a short walk and a beautiful sight.

Back in the car, I finally had a chance to dry out. Having forgotten my raincoat back at the house, I was getting a bit damp in the windy, drizzly weather. Luckily, the wind wasn’t cold and the rain wasn’t heavy. And, since I’m not made of sugar, I didn’t melt!

Our next stop was Kiritehere Beach, a beautiful black sand beach that is supposedly a good place to find fossils. I really wanted to find a fossil, but we really only had enough of a break in the weather to walk down to the beach and enjoy the ocean view.

Back in the car, and an hour later, we found ourselves at the end of a side road. While we had a river near the car park, the only access to the beach in front of us was through a handmade tunnel! We were told this tunnel was dug (by pick ax) as a way to get stock to the beach. The flat, sandy beach surrounded by tall cliffs and rocky outcroppings would appear to be a good pickup/dropoff location. We actually took our time enjoying this area, as the weather had finally begun to clear up.

Our next stop was Pukearuhe, the southern end of the Whitecliffs walkway and conservation area. We knew we didn’t have enough time to complete the walkway (even if we had seen the access sign upon first arriving instead of leaving), so we wandered down the beach in front of cliffs just as steep, if not as white, as the cliffs we didn’t have access to.



We ended our day at Onaero Holiday Park. It was quite crowded, but had access to a lovely little cove of a beach. Staying just outside of the big city of New Plymouth gave us something to explore the next day.






31 December 2008 (Wednesday)
It was a nice turn of events to not wake up to rain or drizzle. In fact, it was quite warm once the sun came out. Unfortunately, the bright sunny day couldn’t change the fact that Dave’s back was causing him serious pain. He could barely walk! He reckons the ultra soft mattress, at our well-meaning free accommodation from the Oparau Roadhouse, followed by a night of hard ground, had done his back in.

Luckily, we didn’t have much planned for the day as far as sightseeing, but we did need to figure out where we were staying and if we could still get tickets to the New Year’s Eve concert. So, I took the driver’s seat for the first time in a day and half and took us into New Plymouth. We were originally going to drive right through the town and to the concert venue – Butler’s Reef pub – but as we were driving I saw the sign for the aquatic centre and then a sign for mineral pools. We figured 10 am might be a bit early for the pub, so I turned around. The mineral pools were closed, but looked a bit above our price range anyway. So we headed back to the Todd Energy Aquatic Center.

Dave had previously gotten out of the car at the gas station and felt fine, so he was quite disappointed when he got out of the car at the park and nearly fell to his knees. We both figured that relaxing in a hot tub might do him some good, so we paid the $4 entry fee and had a morning playing in the pools. I was quite impressed with the aquatic center! It had outdoor and indoor pools, water slides, a big blow up challenge course for kids and adults, and every so often a wave machine would start up! It was way fun!!! AND Dave’s back loosened up enough for him to enjoy it too.

After turning into prunes in the water, we got back down to business. After talking to the pub and having some lunch, Dave decided his back wasn’t going to stop him from having a killer New Year’s Eve. We bought tickets and headed back to New Plymouth to find a hostel (obviously Dave’s back wasn’t up for another night of tenting, even if a park had vacancy). We stopped at the port in New Plymouth and took pictures of crabs on the rocks and boats in the harbour, before finding Shoestring Backpackers. It was a lovely, lovely house/hostel and we were lucky they had a vacancy.

We had dinner and cracked some beers on the deck with a couple of the other guests. Dave really had fun talking with travellers and hearing what they had to say about New Zealand. We said goodbye and happy new year and then headed downtown to the Crowded House pub, where we would be catching a bus to Butler’s Reef for the concert (about half an hour out of town). The concert was awesome!!!!! Autozamm was a good opening act and Opshop seriously rocked out. Dave and I had seen both these bands a month earlier, at the Pohutukawa festival, but both bands were so much better under stage lights and at night. Festivals are fun, but rock bands just aren’t in their element in broad daylight! The best part of the night for me was looking behind me and seeing Dave rocking out with a massive smile on his face!

1 January, 2009 (Thursday)
After getting back to the hostel around 2am, we slept hard until 11. Waking up so late in the day that we were very glad we booked the room for 2 nights (otherwise we would have had to have been packed and gone by 10!). While the day itself was perfect for ringing in a new year – some lame brains the night before had insured a cloud lay over my start to the year. Dave found it first, going out to the car for something before we went for our walk. We are still not sure what it is that was splattered on my car – leaving a large yellow “splat” on one window and many, many spots of junk on the hood, windshield, and roof of my car. Dave thought it was egg at first, but upon closer inspection the yellow fluid was very oily. I still wonder if it wasn’t the fluid found in one of those light sticks or necklaces? Dave would have liked to hand wash the car, but the best we could do was a drive through gas station wash. I think that made everything worse! The water (which I presume was cold) seemed to set the oily residue. The worst of the gunk was gone, but spots on the windshield and paint were still obvious, and sticky. When I tried scraping the residue off the next morning, it came off in latex-like globs! Very strange.

However, we certainly didn’t let the minor vandalism ruin our day (at least they hadn't smashed my brand new windscreen!). We set off for a walk around town, enjoying the warm sun and clear skies. We decided to splurge on a bloody Mary at an overpriced cafe/bar with a great view of the ocean. We then walked through most of the town, taking in the artsy square near the ocean and the clock tower in the center of town. The second half of the day was spent on an unexpected, but lovely, walk following a stream through various neighbourhoods. Neither of us had a camera, and I was wearing jandals (flip flops), but it was a really great time. Despite the decent sunburn I got on my shoulders and the unknown goo on my car, I went to bed sure that 2009 was going to be a good year – after all, I still had 5 months to go in New Zealand!!!!

2 January 2008 (Friday)
We woke up on the 2nd day of the new year to the sound of heavy rain outside our window. So much for walking on the Mount Taranaki trails!! At least we weren’t in a tent!

Despite the weather, we decided to head to the Mount Taranaki/Egmont visitors center anyway – maybe the weather would clear. It didn’t! Jim got us to the top of the road, but that only put us further into the clouds. We made a dash to the visitor’s center and had a look around. The cool interior and overpriced coffee didn’t keep us entertained for long, so we headed back down the mountain without even taking a picture! We headed down to Inglewood, thinking that a day at the “Fun Ho!” Toy Museum would be the perfect place to spend a rainy day. Dave was rather excited about it, as he used to play with Fun Ho! toys. However, New Zealand considers “the day after new year’s day” to be a public holiday; which is good for employees (paid holiday), but bad for tourists..... the museum was closed :(

We really couldn’t think of anything else to do, so we headed back towards New Plymouth. Rather than waste another day in the town, we decided to just keep driving and see what we could find. We took the surf highway around the mountain and along the North and South Taranaki Bights. Our first stop along the way was stony river walkway, out of Okato. We had a nice little meander over the river and through the woods.... but decided it was a bit wet to slog through grassy pasture, so we headed back to the car.

Next, we came to the Cape Egmont lighthouse – a totally cast iron tower that had been moved from the Wellington area! We took lots of pictures (of the lighthouse and the pigeons around it), but these two show the tower and its coast line the best.

Next up, was the town of Opunake. The weather was beginning to clear by the time we stopped at the lookout before the town, so we continued to the town beach for a late lunch.

The weather continued to clear as we made our way around the Mountain. We could actually see the base of the mountain, though the top was still hidden in clouds (which is, apparently, fairly typical). We made a detour to Ohawe, following the maps note for the “site of the first discovery of moa bone in New Zealand”. Unfortunately, the town doesn’t appear to have found this information as interesting as the map writer – there were no signs indicating anything about moa bones (moas being massive, flightless birds that would but an ostrich to shame in its size: they were eaten to extinction long before the arrival of missionaries). So, we didn’t see any moa bones or bone locations – but we did have another good view of the coast.

Our next stop was Hawera. This was the intersection were we could continue down the coast to Wanganui or turn inland back towards the mountain. Our plan had always been to circle the mountain, and we still wanted to try to hike some of the trails, so we decided to stay in Hawera and hope for better weather the next day. We set up our tent at King Edwards Park Motor Camp. The ground was far, far, FAR from the luxury of Port Waikato, but the tent fee was the cheapest we would encounter on the trip.

After setting up camp, we walked back into town – enjoying the sunshine and semi-clear skies. The first thing I noticed when we exited the camp ground was Mount Taranaki/Egmont. We could actually see its peak!!! Judging from the clouds that were still circling just below its peak, I don’t think we would have seen the mountain if we were still in New Plymouth.

In the town center of Hawera, we photographed the water tower (which appears to be the town attraction) and walked back through King Edwards Park. The park was massive – taking up at least 3 blocks! It had a lot of green grass to play on, but also a little “Chinese themed” pond garden and a rose garden. I made Dave go through the rose garden with me, thinking of my parents and their love of flowers.

After an early dinner, we drove down to the beach to see what the sunset was going to do. It was nothing terribly impressive, but Dave got this lovely shot on our way down to the beach. As we played on the beach (Dave skipping rocks, me photographing him skipping rocks) I found what appears to be a scallop shell embedded in rock. My hands were wet from playing in the water, so Dave took this photo for me.

3 January, 2009 (Saturday)
I think it was about 6 am when the thunderstorm hit. It may have been earlier, as I do remember the lightening illuminating things quite a bit. The rain pounded our tent, but we stayed warm and dry. We both drifted in and out of sleep for hours, until around 10am when we took advantage of another lull in the weather to pack our gear, brush our teeth, and head out for another day of wet driving.

There were a couple “attractions” we wanted to hit on our way up to Stratford, one being the cheese cafe outside Eltham. We drove around looking for it for a short bit, until I read on the brochure that it was closed on Saturdays!!! Who closes on Saturdays? So, we quit trying to find it and continued on.

It was still raining when we arrived in Stratford. We went to the information center to find out what there was to do in the area on a rainy day and ask some other questions. Most all the rainy day suggestions were back the way we had just come, and didn’t really interest us – being mostly museums. However, we did find out that the clock tower in the center of town was actually a “glockenspiel”! A glockenspiel is a clock tower that, at given times of the day, has figures come out of hidden doors while music is played. We were told that this particular glockenspiel (playing at 11, 1 and 3) had figures of Romeo and Juliet come out at various places on the tower while a soundtrack played the famous lines from the balcony scene of "Romeo and Juliet". We had just missed the 11 o'clock show, so Dave and I started to wander the town looking for the chocolate and candy store (if we couldn’t have cheese, chocolate would do). However, we were disappointed that this shop was closed too! Stupid new year holidays!!!!

We drove out of town a little ways and found the car racing track, but, despite having seen signs on the way into town of a race, there were no notices of when the next race would be. We headed back to town, deciding on coffee at a cafe to kill time before the glockenspiel performance. The performance took 5 minutes. It was quite novel and I'm glad we saw it. Dave took the still photos, while I took video.

After the performance we decided to try our luck at Mount Taranaki/Egmont again. We headed to the southern visitors center this time, near Dawson Falls. On the way up, I got an excellent photo of the mountain, with clouds swirling around its top.

When we arrived at the vistor center the mountain was shrouded in clouds, but the rain had lulled to an inconsistent drip. We headed straight for Dawson Falls first, getting our outdoor walk done while the rain cooperated. It was a nice, though very muddy and wet, trail through the woods. The falls themselves were quite nice too.

After stretching the legs we went back to the visitors center, just in time for a heavier drizzle to start falling (glad we did the walk first!). I took lots of pictures of wood carving at the entrance to the center, focusing on all the different animals and people carved into the pole.

When we came down the mountain we decided to go ahead and stay at a hostel in Stratford before heading up the “forgotten world highway” the next day. The weather was much better in town when we arrived than when we had left. After settling our things at the hostel, we went for a nice loop walk, the “Carrington Walkway”, following a stream through woods and paddocks. It actually got quite warm when the clouds cleared (though they still clung to the mountain) and turned out to be a nice evening.