One Burgess Hill New Plymouth

... along with our old friend the rain! So instead of heading up to the mountain we went right for the water and checked out New Plymouth. We actually stayed a short drive away at Oakura, a small surfing town with a beautiful black sands beach. For the next few days the pattern was wake up, check to see if the rain had stopped, seeing it hadn't we'd take a walk on the beach, get soaked, get dry and make our way into New Plymouth to play tourist. There ...

... ground...very fast! I was tempted...but I didnt bring myself to do it, just looking down the glass floor was enough for me....for now, maybe ill be tempted on my way home! Next I decided what better way to spend a friday night alone than to play in the casino. 3 hours later and i was still there, and ten dollars up thanks to a thirty dollar win in roulette! night well spent! So this morning after a lovely nights sleep in my private...yes private room (luxury after 4 weeks ...

... us and even had two huts to ourselves. The weather was fantastic and was trying to figure out what all the locals kept saying about Taranaki: "If you can't see the mountain, it's raining. If you can see the mountain, it's going to rain." But then we found out the last day (yesterday), the day we were supposed to do the summit... We had spent the night in a poor hut full of other people's trash and rats scampering all over the place, and woke up to ...

... bus ride was pretty amazing. Everywhere we looked was just like looking at the Shire (Lord of the Rings). Hill after hill dotted with white dots (sheep). I can't get over the number of sheep we passed! Anyways, Jeff Fairweather (who is my Mom's first cousin) met us at the bus station with his wife Leigh and their almost 2 year old daughter Zoe. Leigh is actually expecting baby #2 anyday now! Jeff and them actually ...

... in honour of both his ugliness and Japanese heritage. To be fair to him, he did run pretty well, but man he was an unattractive piece of plasticy feeling vehicle. Throwing all my stuff in the car and saying bye to everyone, I hit the road by about 10am. Heading south, I went through the Tron, and was making good time towards New Plymouth when I suddenly noticed a sign for a kiwi house in Otorhanga. Not having seen a kiwi in my ...

... gauge started to go up rather quickly! We pulled over and let the engine cool down for an hour or so, but it wouldnt start, so we waited another hour....and it still wouldnt start!! A man in a van stopped to see if we were ok and we told him what had happened, he said his brother ran the garage in town and he'd get him to drive out to have a look. He didnt deliver very good news, basically the engine was totally gone and ...

... Museum/Library and up the main street. We seemed to walk for ages, before we decided to have tea in an Indian restaurant, in our shorts and T-shirts, but they let us in ! The only ones in too ! It soon became about half full though, hopefully not from seeing us in the window, as the food wasn't too good at all really. the secons Indian we have had and neither have been any good really. I should have stuck to ...

... other person ***** themselves laughing. Also we learned the narration concept, the second vid shows the crazy drastic changes in the NZ countryside. It's awesome, getting lost here when Heath decides to "take a left" is a blast because the scenery is so cool and varied.

It was a long drive from Cousin Teds and took nearly all day. Through the Manawatu gorge (called Te Apiti by the Maoris meaning 'The narrow passage', which it most certainly was) and onto Palmeston North we stopped to take a look back at the huge Te Apiti wind farm sitting atop the gorge along the ridge, allegedly part of the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere, which stretches from Tararua to Te Apiti. It was 6pm when we arrived at Scoutlands campsite, just south of ...

... to the icy, snowy side. It was a hard trek up the icy path and I almost got speared by a falling icicle that was about a foot and a half long. Very disturbing. I looked up to see there were hundreds of very huge icicles just waiting to fall on my head, so I moved through this area as quickly as possible. Fortunately I was afforded numerous great views of the Tongariro area and also close-ups of Taranaki's splendour so I was able to take the photos ...