New Plymouth

Still can't upload pictures - but I will put up pictures of Taranaki as soon as I can.

Today was a rest day at the beach, although I had to walk 12k RT to get there so I suppose it wasn't completely a rest day. Awesome beach here that is surprisingly not crowded given that New Plymouth is a city of 10,000 (this makes it one of the bigger cities in NZ). The sand is black and the water of the Tasman Sea is extremely cold, so I didn't do any swimming. Also ran a few errands and spent an hour or so with coffee and the paper which was nice. Tonight I'm planning on going out for a drink and pool with an Australian guy I met at the hostel who is also doing a lot of tramping around NZ. He taught me about cricket today :) There's a big bike race tomorrow around Taranaki (150k I think), but I won't be here to see it.

Off to National Park tomorrow for just about 2 nights I think. I will do some more hiking if I feel up to it, and then off to Wellington for a night or two.

-Brian