Friday, 15May09, New Plymouth to Waikaretu

This morning we headed up to Egmont National Park hoping to get some views and hiking of Mt Taranaki. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans. We did get in a hike of about an hour when we had to turn around because of a river we did not think we could cross without getting wet. It rained pretty hard last night and the creeks are gushing. The hike was pretty damp, the vegetation around Mt Taranaki is like rain forest, there were lots of steps and ladders on the trail, they obviously put allot of work in the tramping trails. When we returned the visitor center was open, which is beautiful, so we discussed our plans with them and they pretty much said we should not try to hike up with the current weather situation and our probability of getting any views was slim to none. So we set off for Waikaretu where we booked a B&B for the night. The drive was pretty rainy so even though there was some nice views, we did not stop to take any pictures. Waikaretu is in the boonies, even for NZ, we took several gravel roads barely wide enough to pass a car over mountains to get here, but we are here. The town does not even have a store, a gas station or much else. It has a small school that looks like a house and a café that was just constructed last year. We booked the room with them, the owner is the sister of the owner of the first B&B we stayed at when we arrived in NZ. Tonight they are having a fund raiser at the B&B where we will have dinner, the whole town is coming, they are expecting 30 people J . We are here to see the Nikau caves, we will have to fill you in on that tomorrow.