We bid goodbye to Kendra (she had to work) early on Saturday and drove northward from Wanganui in our rickety Toyota minivan under a brilliant wall-to-wall blue sky. Once out of town and up a little higher among farming hills, our eyes were inevitably drawn toward this beautiful conical mountain that rises 8,200 feet above sea level, and towers over the bush that surrounds it. This is such a rare sight. We have been up this direction on numerous occasions and never have caught a glimpse of the mountain. Usually there is so much cloud cover that we know it is somewhere...but today it revealed itself in all its glory. Here is a picture Jen took as we approached from the South, and it shows both Mt Taranaki and also its sister cone, 6,500 foot Fanthams Peak, in the foreground.
The 25 or so mile radius around the volcano comprises Egmont National Park, and is really very remote and wild. There are only three one-way roads in and out of the park, and even though we were there on a prime summer weekend with great weather, it was anything but crowded. First up for us at Mt Taranaki was the Dawson Falls tramp, a one hour loop through dense native bush that brought us to Dawson Falls. The waterfall plunges about 18 meters down and into a pool of freezing cold water. It was a hot day, but we ate lunch at the base of the Falls and got a little chilly from the spray.
Arriving back to the carpark, we took some more shots of the volcano from atop a viewing platform. Absolutely magnificent, specially of the surrounding rain forest, and...we started to notice the creeping of clouds into the area!
Next up was a hike through the "goblin forest," a beautiful rain forest on the slopes of Mt taranaki consisting of these gnarly old trees covered in moss and host to orchids. The trees have extensive root structures and don't grow up so much as they grow all over the place. They have twisty curvy branches that go all over the place in every direction. Weird!
The hike ended at Wilkies Pools, which are fresh water basins that catch runoff from the snowmelt up high on the top of the mountain. We did our best to wade in to some pf the pools but had moments of panic and a loss of feeling in our legs as we took turns going into the upper pools. We have to insert this photo as it documents the look of panic that sets in when you stay in too long.
Jen hadn't been in yet, and so kept asking the girls to smile. A mili-second after this photo was taken, Lindsay started yelling at Jen that her feet hurt too much to smile, and both girls scrambled out of the water! We have no idea how this one Maori guy plunged into a deep pool and stayed submerged up to his head for over five minutes. That was insane. When Jen and Pete's turns came up for just getting in the water, we lasted about 20 seconds! And we were up to our knees, maybe.
After getting our shoes back on and hiking a half hour or so out of the forest, it was impossible to see the peak of the mountain! The weather had changed so rapidly, and the peak had become completely shrouded and the top third or so was barely visible. (As it happens, though we were near the peak the rest of the weekend, we never saw the upper parts again. How fortunate to have seen it on the ride in!)
We took off from the Park and set off for the beaches north of New Plymouth, the biggest city in the Taranaki region. Our destination was Tongapurutu. The town is literally on the map, but we are not sure why! The "town" consisted of about ten houses on a river that runs into the Tasman Sea. Still, pulling off the highway, we found a nice little "domain" - a Kiwi term for a park with public toilets, and usually set aside for recreation and where someone can do some short term camping.
We set up camp and then went out for dinner and for some boogie boarding at Mokau beach, a pretty popular spot on the West coast (by popular we mean that there were about ten people on the 2 mile stretch of beach : ) It was a beautiful expanse of black sand stretching for miles, with a consistent "left hand break" to the surf. We could have stayed longer, but left to get back for some card games at camp and a quiet night sleeping at the domain.
The big attraction to the area was the beach at Tongapurutu, another of the NZ Frenzy guidebook "must-sees." Once again the guidebook did not lead us astray. At low tide the next morning, we walked out over via the river channel (at high tide it would be over your chest deep) and then the beach just sort of opened up for us. It was an amazing collection of archways, caves and boulders that are continually and relentlessly being carved by the Tasman Sea . We wandered in and out of caves, some of which were filled with various depths of water, only to find more expanses of sand on the other side, which ultimately would lead to more caves, columns, structures and beaches. This picture hopefully conveys what this beach was like - to your right are arches right up to the beautiful Tasman Sea, and a little further left are actual caves that lead out to yet another beach. And at high tide this whole are would be inaccessible due to chest high water crashing into the arches and rocks!
Here is a picture of the girls on one of the many beaches, ready for some boogie boarding.
We spent a lot of time boarding in a nice gentle surf area. We had this particular beach all to ourselves. Amazing!
But we also kept on exploring the caves and structures. At one point we were pretty far (maybe a mile or so) from the pinch spot that we would have to get back past just to get back via the river to our campsite. Realizing the tide was rolling back in, we high-tailed it back through that spot, and just barely. Water was beginning to fill the caves and arches that we had just walked through lazily only an hour before.
Anyway, we got back mostly dry, and with lots of good stories and pictures to share. What a beach! If you are ever in this neck of the woods, you should definitely check this out! Here are two of our favorite pics of the arches and caves. I specially like the second one, of "elephant rock," even though we thought it looked more like an anteater!
Safely back to our campsite, we packed up and began the long drive all the way home to Wanganui.
What an awesome weekend, I hope we can get back again!
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