With the quiet state of affairs in New Plymouth on a Saturday night (the Festival of Lights notwithstanding), I was anticipating deserted streets and a quick departure on a Sunday morning.
Not so much. A street stall had sprung up around our parked car - with our somewhat sheepish-looking Concierge shrugging in helplessness. Jen tapped into her boundless capacity to engage and befriend completely random people to extricate our car from between stalls of organic veges and strumming blues enthusiasts.
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Free from pop-up stalls and oblivious shoppers, we finally drove across town to Paritutu Rock (my comparison of the name to a parrot in ballerina gear not going down well with the Martin kids). Despite the ominous appearance, Paritutu Rock was described as "not as bad as it first appears - taking around 15 minutes and of only medium difficulty". I probably should have treated a site specifically aimed at walkers/climbers with a degree of caution, but what can you do? It is located on the coastline, deep in an industrial area - making for some fairly gritty vistas. The older Martin kids flatly refused to partake upon learning that the stairs petered out halfway up - replaced by a chain bolted to the rock, to assist with not falling off the rock entirely.
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| 15 minutes? |
After a series of really unpleasant timber steps (the first one on each flight being two steps high for some reason), a sign cheerily informed that the grading of the climb just got a lot worse. Jen was taking Josh up as high as was safe for him, initially thinking to stop once the steps became a chain rail. I forged ahead (as long as "forged" includes clasping at chains and rocks in an alarming manner while attempting to take a photo or two).
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| There really wasn't anything beyond that grassy bit. |
Testament to the ruggedness of New Zealander families, I made way for parents with small kids happily scrambling near-vertical sections of rock, recounting of how this was the place that they'd previously sprained their ankle. Comments included, "no need to hang onto the chain - you'll be right!". A little further on, a very pregnant lady and her dog came scarpering down (the dog at least looked reasonably alarmed).
I eventually crested the summit and took a bit of a peek about (I was going to say "peak", but that's not very funny).
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| The view south from the rock. |
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| Suppressing looks of both exhaustion and terror. |
On the way back down, I discovered Jen and Josh had made their way past the steps and onto the chained section proper. Josh's complete lack of fear and Martin-esque coordination resulted in the pair of them stopping part way up. We all completed the journey down together (I took the lead to assume the role of "cushion" should anyone else in the group come down a little too quickly). The older kids had a very "told you so" look on their faces when we made it back to the car, but it was actually fairly fun.
Due to the Street Market still going in full swing, we parked in the very nearby shopping centre, before wandering over to Puke Ariki (Maori for "hill of chiefs") - New Plymouth's very own museum.
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| A very malnourished Moa |
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| Downtown New Plymouth |
I'd noticed that Mount Taranaki was entirely shrouded in cloud cover while hanging onto Paritutu Rock, and was a little concerned we'd miss the opportunity to get a decent look at it. If you're unfamiliar with Mount Taranaki, google the thing - it's a single peak (okay there is a bit of a lump on the side) akin to Mount Fuji. It's also an active stratovolcano - no lava flows, think more along the lines of Mount Vesuvius (but a happy, friendly, totally not alarming to family members reading the blog kind). I become a little obsessed with getting at least one photo of the thing before the anticipated rain in the morning. We grabbed a quick bite back at our hotel room, and then drove in a south-easterly (ish) direction.
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| One of the embarrassingly many roadside shots of Mt Taranaki. |
The closer we got to Stratford (where the eastern part of the Egmont National Park links to), the more apparent it became that I'd been fretting needlessly (this never happens of course). The road up to the eastern parking area was a series of hairpin turns, and the car was smelling a little funky by the time we got to the top. It was called the Plateau Car park and is the highest of the car parks in the National Park. It afforded views of not only Mt Taranaki (the thing is enormous by the way), but also of distant mountains in other ranges entirely.
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| Mount Ruapehu (Tongariro National Park) |
We'd already made a deal with the kids that we weren't going to undertake a re-hash of yesterday and walk for hours. Fortunately, there was a viewing station a very short stroll from the car.
On the way over to Stratford, we'd passed a small town with an interesting plea for help. This kind of slotted together with the relaxed examples of parenting I'd witnessed in New Plymouth. Tomorrow will see grey skies and a bit of a drive to the nation's capital.
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| A bit presumptuous if you ask me. |
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