Regan Lodge Motel Stratford

... als kleine Schneetupfer durchging, sich hier oben jedoch eher als geschlossene bis zu 40 cm dicke Schneedecke praesentiert. Der erste Schnee auf den ich in diesem "Winter" einen Fuss setze! Der supersteile Aufstieg (und so gehoert sich das nun leider einmal fuer einen perfekten Kegelvulkan) wird mehr und mehr zur Kletter und Rutschpartie. Steigeisen und Eisaxt waeren auf jeden Fall angebracht, waren in meinem Weltreisegepaeck aber leider ...

... artefacts and all fishy things relayed to you by the owner should you wish to learn. It was a nice place. It didn't smell of fish though...thankfully. As David checked his emails, I watched some Hollywood film about Antarctic explorers - one explorer reluctantly had to leave his huskies behind, chained up while the weather commanded that they fly back to base. This one explorer vowed to return to save his huskies but no one would fly him because of the atrocious ...

It's Sunday the 17th. I am in New Plymouth for the farmers market. I have been at the Avonstour rarebreed farm outside of Stratford in Taranaki for 5 days now. I think I am about 100km (50 miles) away from where Jason is from. I will be here one more week. The family I am staying with John, Ruth, Samuel, and Ila are hard working, rugged folks. The other night at dinner there was a feral cat on the porch and John ...

... feeling quite deflated for some time after they'd gone. Although I could go back to scratching myself, burping and doing all those other things that Kat has said "I do" to which I try and hide from polite company. Since then, we've largely just been in Wellington. We did have one eventful trip out to the other side of the bay for a run though which dented my pride in more ways than one, causing a small road accident. Just a prang which left one of our rear ...

After Bas'z climb we booked into a campsite in stratford where he got a hot shower and we had some tea and got a goods night sleep, the next day we headed to the otherside of the mountain and we both walked to the Dawson Falls, it was an excellent walk around the national park, a really cold day, but brilliant fun, so we then jumped into the van in the afternoon and headed south.

... national park, but actually she said you are not doing anything wrong, if you are clean and tidy and quiet, but if we were asked to move on we would have to, so it is free parking, so we stayed tidy and quiet and went to sleep in the nationalpark.

... times daily. Nice. Heading east next, across country to Taupo on the Forgotten Highway. Lots of nothing for a hundred and fifty ks - a blast from thepast. Our last day on the road and time to use one of our Christmas presents from Bryan and Kirsty - Wai-o-tapu or Sacred Waters, a volcanic park complete with steaming earth and bubbling mudpools, very interesting.

... almost all of the year we decided on a loop walk which took us down a track to see the Dawson Waterfalls, hidden in the middle of trees and fed by the Mountain it was worth the walk, but a little disappointing not to have been able to get closer to the Mountain itself. On our way back out of the National Park we saw a possum - dead - purposfully draped over a sign, like a warning to anyone who loves these animals, that within this park and in most of NZ the Australian ...

... on my way down. About 2/3 of the way there I rounded a corner to be struck by the site of Mt Taranaki rising out of what almost appeared to be the sea. It was here that I was struck by just how big this mountain actually was. What was I thinking!!! The top was covered with snow!! I arrived in New Plymouth, left my luggage at the motel reception, and then headed on down to the carpark at North Egmont Park, where I was meeting my guide ...

... local saying is that if you can see the mountain, it's going to rain, and if you can't...well, you know how it goes. It took several days before we saw it at all and we aren't going to get the crystal clear views on the postcards, but we have seen a bit of the snowcapped tip and done some very soggy walks. (Squelch squelch). New Plymouth has a splendid seafront setting completely trashed with some very bad town planning, Stratford is Shakespeare themed ...