I'm back...**waves**

Hi Everyone, I hope you had a great New Year.

Post is extremely long...........

We have been away for about a week with the Caravan around the Taranaki area. Weather was nice mostly.

27 December 2012

We left Auckland and travelled to Marakopa on the West Coast, a lovely little spot across the road from the ocean. We managed to get there without incident which is pretty good for us! Went out to Kiritehere Beach, where there were a few people fishing, sand was way to soft for the truck, a nice man offered to take our fishing gear to the beach on his quad bike..so we did. Only caught one fish a nice 3kg plus, offered this to the person who took us to the beach, he didn't want it obviously something to do with filleting it. LOL.

 

Marakopa Camp



The Fish

Belted Galloway Cow (Cool)

View of Marakopa

Marakopa Inlet

28 December 2012

From here we went over the hill and along the coast to Mokau, true whitebait country, even tho the whitebait season had just ended it was still available.

How about this for a whitebait fritter and this is a small one!! 

 

Mokau Beach

Mokau Beach

Wall of Jandals and Sandals



From here we went to the White Cliffs Walkway, a scenic walk featuring the White Cliffs and the Three Sisters rock formations (now only 2 sisters after one was washed away). Road got pretty narrow and because it was us we assumed there would be a carpark or turning bay at the end of the road...WRONG!!! We had to back the caravan down a hill and up the otherside to be able to turn around. Goodness knows what happens when there is a lot of vehicles there.

White Cliffs and Three Sisters

Travelled on to New Plymouth after filling up as by now we are way low on diesel, sucking on fumes pretty much!  We are spending 2 nights in New Plymouth. We are staying at the Belt Road Holiday Park right on the coastal walkway.
Below are some photos taken at different points along the 11km walk

Map of Coastal Walkway

Boulders

View to Harbour

Night shot View to Harbour

Te Rewa Rewa Bridge

 

Paritutu Rock

Sugar Loaf Islands
 

Art in town...

Buildings..

Richmond Cottage - 1853-54

House with fence made from unwanted snow skis

Devonport Flats - New Plymouths first apartment block. 1922

St. Marys Cathedral NZs oldest stone Church

Len Lye's Wind Wand Sculpture (45metres)

New Plymouth had its Festival of Lights on at Pukekura Park, below are a few photots I managed to get.
There were hundreds of people there the night I went so it was hard to get a decent photo.

There was a lot of cloud around the mountain the couple of days we were in town, but it managed to peek out for a quick shot.

Mt. Taranaki

Also out for a nice show was Mt. Messenger.

Mt. Messenger

29 December 2012

Today we travelled Surf Highway 45, this took us from New Plymouth to Oakura through Opunake down to Hawera, up to Stratford into Inglewood and back to NP. (105km)

Oakura

Cape Egmont Lighthouse

Opunake

Remnants of Wharf 1913

Hawera Water Tower (1914)

Stratfords clock tower is home to New Zealands first Glockenspiel - and one which is unique in the world for its Shakespearean theme taken from Romeo and Juliet. The performance plays for about 5 minutes 4 time a day.

Stratford Glockenspiel

Romeo, Romeo where for art thou Romeo...

PHEW!!... You keeping up
Because this is such a long post I am splitting it into two, will be back in the next day or so with the conclusion of the trip.