New Plymouth, New Zealand.

New Plymouth

It is believed that New Plymouth was formed when a volcano erupted and raised the level of the surrounding land. You can see from the map above, a round bump on the west coast that starts where New Plymouth is. In the centre of that bump is Mount Taranaki. Unfortunately the weather didn`t bring us clear blue skies so the peak was always obscured by cloud, but you cant have it all!

The area has great fertile soil due to previous volcanic eruptions, and so New Plymouth and the surrounding towns are famous for their gardens. Due to the time of year there wasn´t much in a few of these gardens except brown soil and dying flowers but we still went to see.

Tupare Garden - great water feature.

The city park was by far the best grounds that we saw. Lush lawns, wild woods, winding paths, numerous lakes with japanese style bridges. Lovely!

A japanese looking bridge. Apparently the guy who designed this bridge (in the 1800s), was found a few years later drowned right by it. They reckon he commited suicide.

New Zealand has so many ferns. They´re in every forest and wood. It feels like you´re walking through the movie Jurassic Park!


Thats me inside that pagoda...

Here´s a Chinese Garden - apparently New Plymouth has a sister city in China, Kunming.

This is the ceiling of the chinese pagoda you can see through the archway above.

Its so weird to see in August, but the daffodils are just coming out!

Very rarely do you see old buildings in New Zealand. The Brooklands Park has a famous chimney. It once belonged to an old wooden house that was built in the mid 1800´s (the land used to belong to this house, which was later offered as the city park). The house was burnt down in a Maori battle, all that remains is the stone chimney.

Me inside the fireplace!

We had hired bikes for the day, cycling down the coastal path, then detouring to all the different gardens and parks. The day was finished off with a lovely sunset!

Sunset in New Plymouth.