part of the twiddle thumbs loop track

after everyone last night said the showers here seem too yucky to use and no one would take a shower, i was the only one who held fast to that agreement. so i felt pretty gross for the rest of the day. this morning twiddle thumbs befriended our dorm room roommate, carlos from barcelona. while everyone chatted in spanish, i made lunch.

we decided to go up to the mountain after all. it was only about a 10 minute drive to egmont, and from there about 20 minutes on egmont drive to the north egmont visitor center in the national park. i was driving slow and careful so it took awhile. on the way back i made much better time.

the first walk we did was the nature track, which is only about 10 minutes. it was really cold. too cold. so we decided not to do any of the other short walks. we did about 5 minutes of the twiddle thumbs track just so that twiddle thumbs could say she walked her own track.

the top of mt. taranaki hidden by clouds

it's a shame that while we were up there, the top of mt. taranaki was obscured by clouds. later on as we were driving, the clouds subsided and we had excellent views. sometimes there were a few clouds at just the right angle so it appeared that mt. taranaki was smoking.

view of mt. taranaki from surf highway 45

we wanted to get the best of both worlds, both the mountain and the sea. after egmont, we returned to new plymouth to take the scenic surf highway 45 coastal route. what a long ass boring drive! nothing but cows and sheep, sheep and cows. throw in a horse and that's about it. to break up the monotony, i turned when a sign noted that a surf beach was 3km away. i went to the end of the paved road, took a gravel road, and got a view of cape egmont lighthouse but the road did not take us to the lighthouse. paved road returned and i pressed on and made it back to highway 45 without turning around. shortly after getting back on the highway, a sign pointed to the road that leads to the lighthouse. i'd had enough wandering and just wanted to get on with it and get closer to wellington!

cape egmont lighthouse

eventually we made our way through all the cities, hawera, patea, wanganui, bulls, levin, porirua, etc. it rained a little. it got dark. we made it back to wellington. we had dinner. i'm tired. i want to pass out. good night!