Mt. Taranaki

Once again, I am about two weeks late with my updates. I'll try to catch up this week.

This weekends adventure was a two day one night tramp near Mt. Taranaki. I picked up the rental and the employee asked if a manual transmission would be OK, but asked in a tone making it clear this was my only option. When the rest of the group (Joe, Maura, and Margaux) arrived, we found I was the only one who had any experience driving a manual. The drive was a little over 4 hours each way, and I had the privilege of driving it all. Leaving in congested Friday evening traffic was frustrating, but the road soon cleared and it wasn't a bad drive at all. Stopping and starting on hills was my only issue.

We stopped short of the mountain that night in a little seaside town (on Friday the 13th, haha), and stayed in a backpackers ran by a little old lady and her husband. We wanted to take a walk down to the beach, but it was dark and we didn't find any accessible points. There were a few people on a front porch singing kareoke, so Joe asked them for help finding the beach. They said it would be a long walk at night and we should just go in the morning with our car. Then we were invited to join them in some kareoke, and ended up having a very enjoyable night. It was the man's 40th birthday the next day and he was "testing the equipment." The quality of singing was hit and miss, but I believe Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al" performed by Margaux and myself was a big hit.

We did go down to the black sand beach the next morning and could see Mt Taranaki off in the distance.

The hike the next morning started out with a bang. It seemed the first mile was nothing but stairs as we climbed towards the summit of Mt. Taranaki. The view below from the carpark at the beginning of the trail.



Then we emerged from the shrubs onto some more rocky walking along the ridges. This is Joe, who attends Georgetown back in the states. He appears in many of my picture because he was always in the way. Kidding, it was usually either him or myself leading the group, so many of the pictures either have Joe or no one in them. There are a few of myself taken by others that I may be able to find.

After a little more climbing, the trail began to even out and start to circle the mountain. There were great views everywhere, but sometimes you had to keep your eye on the trail.

Then the trail dropped down into a valley between Taranaki and some of the smaller peaks. We took a side hike to Holly Falls, which was a great spot to rest and eat some lunch, or climb around on the boulders like I did.

After getting back on the main trail, we walked through a marshy plain surrounded by mountains on all sides. The views were tremendous.


The final push to the hut was intense. These stairs were steep and I took a few breaks on the way up to turn around and see how far we had climbed, and to look ahead and see how far we still had to go.

The night at the hut was nice. The hut itself was nothing special, but from the windows you could see the seaside city of New Plymouth and tons of stars. A Kiwi family was also there and they nearly fed us a complete meal. They kept shoving food at us they didn't want, and we happily kept eating everything they offered. We woke up for the sunrise the next morning and it was well worth it. Walking around the top of the ridge nearby just before sunrise was amazing. I can't say much more about it, so here are some pictures.



Then the sun started to rise over some distant mountains.


After admiring the sunrise, we wandered down to a few small pools on the rise. One of the park rangers had told us to make sure and see the reflection of the mountain in the pools. We all agreed after looking at the pools that Mother Nature had intended New Zealand to be a tourist destination.


Next up was Henry Peak, and I recited a story of my ancestor being the first to climb Henry Peak: The Deadliest Mountain in New Zealand. I think everyone bought it. In all seriousness it was a difficult climb with steep steps and even ladders.



Some clouds were coming in behind us and obscured some views, but were fun to take pictures of anyway.



The ending of the hike was through dense forest, so there were few spectacular views. This section of the hike was still worthwhile, and consisted of many decents into streams and climbs back out of them. Many times the roots of trees had been made into elaborate stairs and ladders.

After some tricky climbing we were back to the road, and we all wanted some serious food. A common problem on the end of our trips has been the lack of open eateries in NZ on Sunday. Every town seems absolutely empty. We finally found a little burger joint and rewarded ourselves with some greasy sandwiches and chips (fries).