Last night we had a good evening with Kristen with the conversation flowing her improving our understanding of Maori cultural issues. It was lovely to meet such an amazing, young woman. This morning as we left she confirmed her employment papers were now authorised and she was off to Australia at the beginning of January.
We popped back to the Museum in Whanganui that gave us an insight to the land issues which have plagued the people in NZ since settlement times. The many historical photos showed what the new settlers had to encounter when they left their homelands to seek a new life here. Nothing changes...
Our homestay hosts tonight are in New Plymouth city, which is north of Mt Taranaki yet a good access point to the National Park for our tramping in the next few days. On leaving Whanganui we headed to a Kai Iwi beach, a Lonely Planet recommendation famous for its black sands and driftwood. Glenn took a cloudy, windy walk to beach and, yes - it was black and covered with driftwood. A couple of photos and it was back to the car to continue the journey.
Some miles further we pulled off the road for lunch and parked up at picnic spot facing a railway line. Whilst sitting in the sunshine a flat back truck sped past us - on the railway track!
The route took us past Mt Taranaki, with its summit lost in the clouds, and through the largest dairy area in NZ with huge herds of up to 500 cattle. These apparently supply cheese for McDonalds throughout the pacific region.
Mid afternoon we arrived in New Plymouth and promptly went to the tourist info centre to get the full weather report on the mountain summit. The weather here is much wetter than the rest of the country so it is possible for snow to fall on the summit and lower slopes even during summer months. Unfortunately with the El Nino influence on the weather this year, more rain is forecast for today and Friday and with freezing temperatures bringing snow and ice higher up. This means we won't be able to tackle the full mountain until at least a couple of days time when the weather is due to perk up. We've now planned a couple of options for hikes on the lower slopes, found the cinema times and details of other indoor activities such as museums, art galleries etc..
As we were walking along the promenade, black clouds loomed and then heavy rain set in so we dashed back to the car and headed off to meet our homestay hosts, Bill and Margaret. Arriving there looking like drowned rats, Bill immediately put the kettle on and produced a Christmas cake, which we could not resist. Furthermore he extended an invitation to dinner this evening - Shepherds Pie, what a welcome! Margaret was flying in from Auckland and Bill went off to collect her from the local airport leaving us in charge of making sure the potatoes didn't burn. Our first responsibility for weeks.
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| Kai Iwi beach - black sands, driftwood and not much else. |
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| The sea front walk at New Plymouth |
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