It would be easier to write this blog if I actually could remember what I have done since the 19th May when I last posted. I am sure there must be moments of interest and amusing anecdotes aplenty that will never be recorded for posterity. My memory seems only to stretch back as far as this weekend so that is what I shall describe.
Today is The Queens Birthday - "Many Happy Returns Liz". In New Zealand this means a Public Holiday. Whilst my readers in the UK were enjoying a sunny bank holiday last Monday the rest of NZ and I were working hard. Now I can relax on a bonus day off whilst the rest of the world slaves away. Why Kiwis, now fiercely independent and proud of their unique culture, still celebrate the birthday of a distant monarch I don't know. The result though is that the better half and I got a long weekend and on Friday we drove up the west coast to Taranaki.
Finishing work early on Friday, having already packed our bags on Thursday, we headed off on State Highway 1 (SH1) along with half the population of Wellington fleeing the city for the weekend. Of course, half the population of Wellington still isn't a huge number of people but SH1 isn't quite the M1 so traffic was slow. Lots of people criticise New Zealand roads but when you consider the country is the size of the UK with only 7% of the population (approx. 4.5 million and 63 million respectively) the resources assigned to building and maintaining them are limited. SH1, the foremost highway in the country, running over 2000km from Cape Reinga in the north to Point Stirling in the south, is a single carriageway road for most of its length. Travelling the 320kms to Opunake in Taranaki, therefore, took us over 4 hours.
We had booked a room at a hotel overlooking the sea and arrived in time to get into the restaurant for a fantastic dinner. Taranaki is cow country and the steak I had showed what wonders volcanic soils do for grass and in turn beef. As we arrived in the dark we didn't get a view of Mt Taranaki - a 2518m high "dormant" volcano. The classification as dormant is a curious one. Apparently there is evidence to show it had minor eruptions every 90 years and major eruptions every 500 years right up to about 1860 AD when it went quiet. Geologists think that a significant eruption is overdue but there have been no signs of any activity in recent years.
After a well deserved lie-in to compensate for the long drive, breakfast on Saturday was Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon - mmmmmm. We then headed off towards a wall of cloud and climbed steadily up small country roads to Dawson Falls visitor centre on the slopes of Mt Taranaki. The better half was convinced up to this point that the volcano did not exist and a day of cloud and drizzle did nothing to persuade her otherwise. Despite the rain we had a few hours fantastic walking. Mt Taranaki gets over 7000mm of rain a year so the waterfalls and rain forest were pretty impressive. What was surreal was walking up through thick, lush green vegetation on a path covered in snow.
We made our way up to around 1000m and stopped at a memorial to Sir Edmund Hillary (very fitting as it was recently the 60th anniversary of his Everest ascent and yes, he was a Kiwi). Realising at that point, given the dense mist across the mountain and the fact we were less than half way up, we were going to be denied a view of any kind we headed back to the car. The sun did try and break through on a number of occasions and the combination produced some wonderfully clear rainbows which seemed to rise out of the grassy fields within touching distance. Our efforts to get a view of the mountain were as successful as trying to chase the rainbows. After a late lunch, hoping for better luck with views, we drove out to the beach and got treated to a pretty sunset.
Sunday dawned not a great deal better than Saturday with grey skies threatening rain at any moment. Following another huge and indulgent breakfast we packed up and started the trip slowly back towards home in Wellington. We had planned a stop at a wildlife reserve for a short walk and lunch in Hawera. As we drove out across the lower slopes of the mountain the other half made a sort of squeaky noise and point out the window of the car in excitement. Sure enough in behind the drifting clouds were the slopes of Mt Taranaki. We were treated to a couple of minute of curious unveiling and re-covering of the mountain by clouds, never revealing more than a fraction of itself. It was like some strange meteorological strip tease and we were not entirely convinced our eyes weren't playing tricks on us.
We carried on to Lake Rotokare, a scenic reserve which is surrounded by a predator proof fence. It is a conservation area of national importance due to the habitats and bird life it contains. Whilst doing a 4km walk around the lake we were treated to sightings of Tomtit, Kereru, Fantail, Grey Warbler, Silvereye, Pukeko, Bellbird, Scaup, Tui, Black Swan and numerous others that we weren't quick enough to identify. The Silvereye and Fantails were especially tame.
Heading away from Lake Rotokare the clouds finally parted and we got a proper view of Mt Taranaki. It is truly awe inspiring and I will have to go back in the summer to climb it. It even stayed out of the clouds long enough for me to get a photograph. The weekend having hit a climax we grabbed a quick lunch then hit the road back to Wellington. With it being winter we arrived at home in the dark and had a chilled out evening of TV and pizza.
I write this now wondering where the weekend went. Today has been spent catching up on all those little things that would have been spread out over a normal weekend. The better half has been out to ride the horse. I have sorted out some more climbing for this week. All in all the wheels of our life are turning fairly smoothly. A small portion of the day has been taken up scouring the interweb for holidays in the South Pacific. We hope to get away later this month so watch this space for tales of palm trees, cocktails and tropical sunsets.
