New Plymouth

It is now Easter Break in New Zealand and all of the primary schools are off for two weeks before term 2 begins in May. We are staying in Palmy for the break as I still need to finish up some work but we did decide to take a quick trip over to New Plymouth. New Plymouth is situated in the Taranaki region which is a large curve of land on the west coast that extends out into the Tasman Sea. It is mainly flat but in the center is Mount Taranaki (or Mount Egmont), which is a 2518 m high dormant volcano.

We first drove to Hawera, a small town on the coast and went to visit the Tawhiti Museum since we had been told it was definitely worth a stop. With its life size figures and smaller scale figurines this museum makes history interesting, even to a 6 year old child. We took a boat ride through the Traders and Whalers exhibit which has life sized figures depicting different scenes from when the Maori and the Europeans began to trade. Then we went through the other exhibits and learned about the Musket Wars that took place with the Maori. There was also an entire section on the life of the early settlers and Bree loved all the old toys.  

From Hawera we took the scenic Surf Highway 45 around the coast to the City of New Plymouth. Mount Taranaki was just visible but it kept hiding behind clouds. New Plymouth is a city of about 70,000 people and has a small central downtown business district that is located right on the water’s edge. Bree and I stayed right downtown and were just a short walk to the coastal walkway. We splurged and went out to a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner and had appetizers, a main course and dessert.

The next morning there was a Farmer’s Market on the street outside our hotel. We bought a bag of feijoas  and a bag of fresh passion fruit and had a good snack before heading to the walkway. Bree rode her bike and I jogged along side. It was great fun because the surf will hit the rocks and sometimes come up onto the path. Bree was actually trying to get splashed since it was a sunny day. After a morning in the fall sun we jumped in the car and started the 3 hour drive back to Palmy.

On the trip home we took Hwy 3 which runs around the east side of Mount Taranaki and takes you through dairy country. We took some side trips down country roads so that I could get some photos since it is now fall and all the trees are changing colours. I now have hundreds of photos of agriculture in New Zealand but really need to take the time to organize them all while I still remember where each is from. We were back home by dinner time and now Bree is attending a holiday camp although we might sneak off for a day or two over the Easter weekend.