Quality Hotel Plymouth International New Plymouth

... one last beach walk (in the sun!) and headed out and up! Once up on the hill and at the North Eggmont DOC visitor center where we heard that at the most we'd have one to two days of nice weather and then another set of storms would be rolling in. We quickly made plans for a hike and an overnight stay at a hut, just below where climbers start their ascent to the summit. Not too long after you leave the trailhead does the forest envelope you. There ...

... internet...) Met some other med students a couple from germany and one studying here also doing paeds. They all just got back from either surfing, or climbing mountains, both seem to be popular here, and i can see why. My room has a fantastic sea view!! and the other side of the hostel has a beautiful view of the snow capped mount taranaki. I'm informed by ben one of the students some ppl are climbing the summit tomorrow to get to the snow, so i think i will join them. Hope im ...

... I'm enjoying Patches crazy company. Plus there is a Christian Science church here and I'm going to a Wednesday night service! Hopefully we won't hit crazy Easter stuff this weekend out on the trail. It's the last long holiday weekend for Kiwis until about October and the kids are on there first 2 week vacation of the school year. Sorry about no pictures again! USB ports are hard to come by around here. But if I do get any up, I'll let you know! Cheers!!

... and Zoe) were great! We really can't thank them enough. Jeff even took an afternoon off of work to take Michelle and I surfing! First time for both of us. The water was freezing (probably 50 degrees farenheit)--remember it's still spring and this is the Tasman Sea, so we wore bodysuits to help keep us somewhat warm. It was quite rocky and Michelle was terrified she would cut her foot on a rock and attract a shark ...

... stayed near the back of his area but ran about a lot. He was a lot more active than I thought kiwis were! The other was a great spotted kiwi, a girl whose name I forget, who was much bigger than I thought and also moved around a lot. I was lucky to be there around their feeding time, where the handler showed how super friendly the bigger kiwi was - she patted her and the kiwi tried to nip at the handler, so cute! Glad to have finally ...

... place we've stayed in New Zealand, it was a shame we didnt enjoy it more. We went back to visit out knackered car the next day, overnight we'd decided to leave it parked outside the garage over the weekend while we went up to the festival by bus (we wouldnt have been able to carry a quarter of the stuff we'd accumulated in the car!) just taking the tent, cooking stuff and some essentials. We really didnt want to have to dump ...

We went through Eltham on the way to New Plymouth, the main feature of the town being the water tank on the hill being painted to look like a Cheese. Billy Connolly showed it on his programme. And luckily for us it was on the road we travelled on so we saw it !!

... week. The owner Janine & Sarah were very friendly too. They have a bicycle which is free for use. I haven't been cycling since my campus days back in the late 90s! Nevertheless, I'm so glad to use the mountain bike. There's a 6km walkway built along the coastline by the beach from the harbour to Fitzroy Beach. After lunch, I cycled there. Then, I cycled around town, to the Pukekura Park & then shopping for groceries at Pak & Save. School term had ...

... Iwi beach to listen to the waves and then continued along the coastal road to Hawera where we decided to stop the night. Right next door to the campsite was a swimming pool which had a huge flume, and as we got a discount we decided it would be rude not to go. It was brilliant - although being outdoors it wasn't the warmest pool and slides we had even experienced. The following day we continued along the highway taking in more of the beaches until finally arriving at ...

... further. The walk back was as always much quicker and I was able to take some more pictures. I still didn't encounter any more people on my journey! I left the car park and decided to head round to Dawson Falls (yep, more falls!!). There were a few more people in the car park here so I assumed it was a bit more accessible. Whilst this was the case in that there was no snow or ice, there was an awful amount of very steep steps, which for me is just far ...