Just about a week ago I went to explore more of the country I am in. It has been a while since I actually got some good hikes in, even though New Zealand is basically a country where one of the only things to do it hike! For a good reason, this place is very good lookin'. We stayed in a holiday park on Fitzroy Beach which is a local surf beach. It's got black sand, lots of magnificent flowers and grasses lining the shore, and so much drift wood! To the South there are these big rock formations standing and right before them is a loading dock for cargo ships (very natural oohh ahh). Towards the inland there is Mount Taranaki or as the British would call it Mt Egmont, which to me sounds much less fun. I will continue to call it by it's given Maori name. It is one heck of a volcano, but also elusive and shy. It spikes up out of the sea-level land very suddenly and constantly hides itself behind pesky clouds. If it isn't doing that it is wearing a cloud hat, so I have never seen the full mountain, but I have seen a good majority of it. Around the base of the mountain there are some really really great hiking tracks. And a side note, the roads around the mountain are great as well, get your Top Gear on and drive away!
The first part of the hike we did was through dense tropical forest. If you are a plant lover, then you really should be walking around these forest. I went with 3 other people who are crazy about plants and must spend time identifying every single plant they see. It is entertainment for hours.... if you are VERY into plants. If you are like me you can just enjoy how intensely green everything is and imagine what New Zealand looked like all over the land before the lovely British colonists came and cut down and farmed most of the land. Keep in mind, through Maori history they burned down some forests to catch the birds that they would eat, but their fires did not as much damage as the colonists did. Even now, farmers still refuse to have ANY trees on their lands, and are constantly cutting them down. So walks like this are even more important because who knows how long that will continue if people keep expanding and chopping.
History lesson over! Thanks for looking, enjoy the photos and have a radical day!
The hidden Mountain
Tree sculpture on our way to the Pools
Dawson Falls
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