Taranaki (Days 6 - 8)

We arrived in the afternoon to New Plymouth and headed straight for the beach (of course.) Fitzroy beach was a 5 minute drive from the city and so that was our first stop. 

As was the usual scenario, Thomas went in first and then came in again later with me to help me as I was still useless a year later. Unfortunately today though it decided to pour with rain which meant my normal role of surfing photographer was a bit trickier and instead I mainly spent the time waiting for Thomas huddled inside the car. 

Once you were in the water it was comparatively warm to the outside rain, however after about an hour my feet felt like blocks of ice and I took that as a sign that maybe that should be it for the day. 

We then headed towards our campsite for the night (fortunately the rain had cleared by this point) and drove the half hour out of the city (or town really, nowhere in New Zealand can really be considered a city.) We reached the site only to be told it was fully booked (interesting as it looked to us like there was a mere 2 cars there.) This left us a little lost and we drove around for the next couple of hours attempting to find somewhere to stay. Luckily we managed to find a parking area we could stay in and so we could focus on cooking our next flavour of soup (tomato - not the best, very watery.) 

The next day we woke early and headed to check out some new beaches. Eventually the obsessive surfer deemed the waves at Back Beach good and went straight into the water (which was impressive as it was very cold.) We noticed everyone in this area was very friendly and interested in hearing about your trip - maybe as it is a little bit less of a touristy area than the other places we had been in beforehand? We then headed to another beach called Oakura where even I managed to catch some fun waves (with a little help from Thomas.) It was definitely easy to see how this was one of the most famous surf spots in New Zealand. 

Heading back into New Plymouth we passed a huge rock called Paritutu rock which was supposedly only a 15 minute climb. The climb started off easily enough before changing halfway to a practically vertical climb up a cliff face. At this point Thomas decided not to continue and I ploughed on up to the top in my flip flops (a questionable choice of footwear here.) The view stretched along the coast and on a clear day you would have been able to see Mount Taranaki (however we would never see this as the clouds were continually surrounding the top whilst we were in the area.) We headed back to our spot for the night and ate our soup in the van as the rain had come back wth a vengeance and showed no signs of stopping.

The next day we were again awake early and had breakfast in the car park of Back Beach as the obsessive surfer was so keen to start surfing again. The weather was a little better today and we decided to start heading down along Surf Highway 45 which circled Mount Taranaki around the coast. 

We stopped at multiple beaches along the route and eventually chose Opunake beach to stop at and do some surfing as the waves were a comfortable height for a beginner like me. After lunch we then continued along the highway. I had heard this highway was meant to be a beautiful drive and whilst the beaches themselves were impressive the drive was long, straight and pretty dull. Although perhaps this would be better if you could actually see Mount Taranaki which was still surrounded in cloud. 

What seemed like a long time later we eventually reached our campsite for the night - Waiinu campsite. Which was only $5 per night and sat right on the beach, the facilities were super clean and apart from one other van we were all alone. Thomas immediately pointed out that the waves were unsurfable and therefore it was a boring beach. However, he spent an hour attempting to fish with no success. The challenge now would be to try to catch a fish before the end of our New Zealand trip.