So in between waiting for appointments with doctors, dentists, and phsyiotherapists Sarah and I decided to take a couple of small trips in the off days. The first trip was a two day excursion where we went and toured the Tui Brewery. We had stopped through there before to sample the wares and to check out the store, but we wanted to look into the factory as well. The tour wasn’t the most impressive, but the beer was, as well as the Beer-keg cricket match being played in the parking lot which we watched. They had an interesting rule in that if the ball was caught with one hand within one bounce, the batter was not out but had to skull a beer. The sport of cricket just got more interesting. The next day, working our way back to Masterton we went and toured throught the Mt. Bruce Reserve area. We saw many intersting birds, including the elusive Kiwi in a special night enclosure, as well as huge rainbow trout and eels. A simple but fun two day trip.
The second break we went up to the Taranaki area. We drove up to Wanganui first. The following day we went up towards Mt. Taranaki (aka Mt. Egmont) and went for a small hike through the goblin forest on the mountain before heading up to New Plymouth. We stayed in a nice campground just above the beach there. The black sand beach (from the former Taranki volcaones) was searing hot and water was cold, but fun to go swimming in. Well Sarah went swimming, while I waded in as far as I could go, because I was not used to swimming with one arm. During the whole time in the area, we got one good glimpse of the mountain-volcano, the rest of the time it was covered in a cloudy haze. We’ve done this with a few of NZ’s great mountains.
The next day we spent the morning looking at the New Plymouth Museum and the petting zoo, which included farm animals for petting, and otters, monkeys, lemurs, and red pandas (which sadly were not available for petting). We then worked our way to another beach at Orakura to enjoy some more sun, before heading down and around to Opunake, where we stayed for another evening. Opunake is a tiny little town, with a gorgeous little sheltered bay. We were treated to a magnificent sunset there. The next day we worked our way back to Masterton to continue Eero’s medical treatment.
