Up The Mountain!

So the weather this morning at Lake Rotokare was shocking so I decided to text Brenda and Roger about the weather and the decision was made to move through to Dawson Falls.

On Manaia Road, leading up the mountain a Dept of Conservation worker flagged me down and told me that this was as far as I was going to get this morning as there was a tree down over the road and it would probably be a couple of hours before they could get it cleared. So another round of text messages and we all met up again in Stratford for morning tea and discussion.

We decided to move up the mountain to the Stratford Lodge car park and do a couple of the small walks there and see what happened with the weather, it was looking like it was slowly clearing.

So we wandered around a couple of the loop tracks leading from the car park and had a lovely walk even though it didn’t rain, we got up into the mist and low cloud and the trees were dripping water like it was raining!

		Patea Loop Track VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The moss on the trees was amazing, as it draped and covered the trees in a wonderful goblinish ways.

So we will spend what looks like a chilly night here and then tomorrow head over to the York Road Loop track and have a look there at the old railway and quarry site that was the site for most of the rock for the New Plymouth Port and roads in the Taranaki area. It is about a 3 hour round trip.

Opunake Walkway

This morning we wandered off to have a look at the Opunake Walkway, a 7km wander around the coastline and through to Opunake Lake, a manmade lake that supplies water to the Opunake hydro electric station, that sits down on Opunake Beach.

We were parked in Middleton Bay so we went towards Te Namu Pa

		Opunake Walk Pt1 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On the way we encountered the twin beam bridge leading across the stream to the Pa, we didn’t cross here but carried on out the end to the street This took us out to the wharf, or the remnants there of. It was a very wild and woolly place and It really does say a lot for the fortitude of the early settlers to attempt to bring boats into this area. Scary stuff and today was relatively calm.

		Opunake Walk Pt 2 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

From there we returned to the busses and headed off down the road towards Stratford, stopping at the lovely Hollard Gardens at Kaponga. An awesome spot with acres of amazing garden that is a wonderful mix of plantings.

		Hollard Gardens VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After a quiet night there, we headed to Stratford, where we had a lovely coffee and did some laundry. We also watched the Glockenspiel that is in the main street do its thing.

		Glockenspiel VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

After that we separated and I headed out towards Lake Rotokare for the night.

		Lake Rotokare VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

A wild and woolly evening was had, with torrential rain and some pretty hairy wind gusts rocking the bus, but I survived without having to shift the bus.

Tomorrow I’ll meet up with Brenda and Roger again and we shall…… not sure what!