New Plymouth

Today I woke up just as it started to rain and packed up quickly. It was then a 30 minute walk through the rain to the bus station in Auckland (I couldn't take the city transport there because it was too early). It took 6 hours to get to New Plymouth by bus, and fortunately most of the rain went through while we were driving. I didn't get much sleep last night because there was a loud party just down the street from the hostel, and I'm feeling rather down today (I'm guessing because of the sleep - fortunately I have a room to myself tonight)

New Plymouth is right on the shore of the Tasman Sea and the rain seems to start and stop unexpectedly. It's a nice small city of about 10,000 and I'm going in a bit to walk through the park where they're supposed to have a very nice lights display and live music every night during summer. There was a New Zealander at the hostel so I talked to him for a while -- mostly he was talking about New Zealand's drinking problem.

Tomorrow I'm getting picked up at 7:30 to go to Mt. Taranaki and I will spend 4 nights there and return to this hostel on Friday. So no blog entries until then! I was able to lock up my tent and a few other things at this hostel, so my pack will be a little lighter.

Back on Friday,
Brian