9June06 New Plymouth

9June06 Friday

We spent today in New Plymouth and made a couple of trips up the side of  Mt. Taranaki.  This morning we stopped at a garden in town that had a beautiful display of ferns plus a lot of other plants.  They had a number of greenhouses which they called a fernery and they were all connected together with tunnels.  They had numerous orchids, azaleas, rhodos, and other plants.  We walked the grounds admiring the wide variety of trees for a while and then decided to drive up to the Pukeiti rhododendron gardens.

At Pukeiti they said that there are approximately 1,000 known varieties of rhodos and that they have 800 of those on display there.  The gardens cover 1,000 acres and include 20 kms of walking trails.  They have just 3 gardeners that keep the gardens in tip-top condition.  The walking paths through the gardens are wide and mowed just like a golf course.  We were really amazed at the way the gardens were laid out and manicured.

 

After leaving Pukeiti we drove up to the Egmont National Park Center which is just above the tree line on Takanaki.  Unfortunately we never did get a clear view of the mountain.  The clouds had settled in on the mountain and we drove through some rain, sleet, and a few flakes of snow when we were up there and the sun just didn’t want to drive the clouds away.  We bought a couple of postcards with views on a nice clear day.

 

Late afternoon we ate at a restaurant in downtown on the Tasman shore call Salt.  Joan ordered a ribeye steak and I had the lamb shank.  They were both very large meals and Joan’s steak was large and thick.  We asked if we could take the leftovers with us but the waitress said that there were new laws in NZ that prevented them from allowing takeouts in a sitdown restaurant.  After some pleading the waitress snuck us a plastic bag and when no one was looking Joan packed away the steak and we left.  Apparently restaurants have had problems with people not properly taking care of the food that they carry out and it has caused some health issues.  Carryouts apparently fall under a different set of rules.

 

Tomorrow we head back north.