In sight of Mt Taranaki

Dear readers, we are blogging from Puke Ariki, the museum and i site in New Plymouth. The photos are from Raglan and our journey here yesterday. Raglan was a pretty cool place, and had some interesting architecture. The first photo is typical of many NZ towns the second is not!!! But we loved it and wondered what its original purpose was - Fogg is sure it is a flying saucer!!

 This was a beach house beside the sea at Ocean Beach. Photo of the beach below - black volcanic sand and nobody about despite it being a sunny Saturday.

 We took a wonderful drive and on the way came across the Bridal Veil Falls. This is from the top, an aweinspiring drop to a pool at the bottom. The water really did look like lace - hence the name. Beautiful native bush led to the bottom of the falls via a serious number of steps, however, the svelt new shape of the travellers meant that we leapt up and down with hardly a stop for breath!!!!!!! (yeah right!!!!)

 Houses in NZ do not have traditional letter boxes and people seem to express their personalities through the letter boxes at the end of their land, road or garden. This was the collection at the top of our road in Raglan!

 The drive from Raglan to Taranaki was absolutely wonderful. Wooded valleys fell down to tumbling rivers, farms were dotted through the hills which came in a variety of shapes and sizes. The road twisted and turned, rose and fell and at each turn we were delighted with an entirely new vista. Small farming towns served the local community (and us with good coffee and internet access) but overall this was open country with hardly anyone around. Occasionally we had glimpses of the Tasman Sea and we ate our sandwiches in the warm sunshine by the beach at the Three Sisters.
Suddenly we turned the corner and Fogg let out a shout - in front of us floating in the sky was Mt Taranaki. The photo does not do it justice but we have posted as today the mountain is covered in cloud and we may never see it again!!!

 We arrived safely at Inglewood and our latest bach. As you can see Phileas settled in quickly and made sure the deck was ok for pre prandial drinking in the evening!! She was also listening to the Bell birds a great favourite.

I'll pass over to Fogg now, best wishes from me.

Poor Phileas is feeling a bit out of sorts today. Not the result of too much wine. She has developed a nasty cold and is suffering. However , not daunted we are carrying on exploring and our intention today is to go round Mt Taraniki and do some walking.
So, as you can see, all well. The baches we have had so far have been awesome. Lots of potential Art possibilities.

Very best wishes from Fogg too.

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