Palmy to New Plymouth

I had a lovely sleep last night at the Shamrock! Breakfast was served up on a trolley in the dining room! Fruit, fruit juice, cereal, yoghurt, toast..... I was well full after all that! Time to walk it off! The Shammy isn't far from the town centre so I trotted off along the road to look at the park in the centre of the town - The Square, and it is too - and then to browse the shops to search for a handbag. A HANDbag? Yes, indeed! My little rucksacky one came to bits at the shoulder strap and the other strap wasn't too clever either! I found Kmart! Well! What a shopper's dream! It sells EVERYTHING! Clothes, sweets, shoes, stationery, bags, make-up, camping gear, lingerie, magazines, food....... you name it and I am sure Kmart would have it! Anyway I found a bag that I can carry on my shoulder and has plenty of room in it! To change all my stuff from one bag to the other I had to find a cafe - Kmart had one of those too - so I bought a freshly made veggie juice and sat down to transfer all my belongings! The old bag went in a street bin later on! Oh and the veggie juice was wonderful! Can't remember what all went into it but there were carrots, tomatoes, a bit of tabasco, and a few other things too.

On the way back to the car at the Shammy, I passed an Art Gallery that I had read about so not having much time I decided just to look at one exhibition, about Maori flute making. One guy, by the name of Warren Warbrick - any relation, Chris? - researched different methods of making these little musical instruments, and set up his exhibition! It was quite interesting.

Drilling the hole through the short piece of wood!There was an adjacent exhibition about Maori carvers and other folk who were early settlers. I had to laugh reading about one famous Maori carver called Mawhite (I think) McGregor! A Scots Maori! McGregor was changed to Makareka - pronounce the "e" as in "bed" - which looks and sounds more Maori!

Picked up the car again and headed off to Wanganui, where I got totally lost after signposts weren't too prominent! That's something about over here! Sometimes I have absolutely no idea what townships I am driving through as there is no placename at the 50kph sign! Street names can be a bit the same. There are often signs with finger type of sign pointing up a road to show you which road you are turning into, but if you turn into another road there may not be a signpost, or it may be facing the wrong way! Anyway after driving round in circles for a while thinking I was heading in the right direction and would have to hit the main highway sooner or later and always reaching dead ends, a very enthusiastic shop keeper from a tiny corner shop pointed me in the right direction with much waving of the hands and directions that didn't seem to tally! I had to repeat them over and over for him to check I'd got it! As it was, his second on the left past the school was wrong but a helpful woman cutting the edges of her bit of the grass nature strip - between the gardens and the road where the footpath goes along the centre. Keep watching Neighbours!!!! - put me straight. I found the road out to Taranaki The scenery round about is fairly flat, and the Taranaki area is dairy cattle territory. There are lots of old milk factories rotting and rusting away along the roadside. It was as I was driving along the main street of Patea that I suddenly realised that I was seeing Mount Taranaki in the distance, straight ahead of me! Mt. Taranaki, or Egmont, is a cone-shaped volcano, NZ's answer to Mt. Fuji, and indeed the film The Last Samurai was filmed here! As I drove further on, the cone was more and more visible! It's about 5000 ft high, and there was snow on the peak, probably well down the sides of the mountain. It was an amazing sight, and quite a magical experience driving round it. It seemed to me that whenever I drove round a bend or a row of trees took my vision away from the thing, when I looked where I thought it should be, it wasn't! It seemed to have moved! Obviously I wasn't looking in the right directions but it was very strange! Anyway, I drove right round the volcano - dormant for the last 300 years or so, I think - instead of taking the short route to New Plymouth which is where I am now! Just how many photo views could I take of the mountain! Well I took several, from all directions! It's quite beautiful! There is a Maori legend about how it came to be there and not with the other more central volcanoes, but it is a long story and I can't remember all the names!

So eventually I came to the city of New Plymouth which I will attempt to see something of before I head out tomorrow! My plan is to reach Rotorua tomorrow! I hope I can find the hostel that Jan and I stayed at last time as it was great!

Can't believe my time in NZ is nearly at an end! One last weekend, a day in Auckland, and back to Oz for Sally's wedding!

So, talk more soon.