Nestled beside the Tasman sea with Mt Taranaki at its back, New Plymouth combines beautiful beaches with a lively cosmopolitan city.
By Sarla Donovan
Exploring New Zealand: Summertime in New Plymouth
19 February 2020
I couldn’t have been happier. It was a sunny Saturday in mid-January and we’d flown up from Christchurch at 8.30 that morning - leaving that city's beastly easterly behind. Stretched out before me were five glorious days in New Plymouth.
Tucked away on the North Island’s west coast, at four and a half hours’ drive from Auckland or Wellington, and just an hour and twenty minutes’ flight from Christchurch it’s actually very accessible.
Proximity to our very own Mt Fuji - the gloriously symmetrical Mt Taranaki - has put it on the map but in recent years New Plymouth has blossomed into a vibrant city where nature and culture combine to offer galleries, gardens and spectacular walking and cycle trails.
It hosts the New Zealand leg of world music festival WOMAD, boasts the nation’s cutest cricket ground at Pukekura Park, the summer-long Festival of Lights, the Taranaki Garden Festival, the most spectacular coastal walkway in the country (and the only one with a wind wand!) and on top of all that it’s on the famed Surf Highway 45... phew!
Our two-room cabin at Fitzroy Beach Holiday Park slept the three of us (child-on-sofa-bed-in-kitchen) and with purple and white agapanthus flowering on the bank behind, flax and pohutukawa trees all around, it’s a beautiful natural setting.
You just have to pad from the porch across the Coastal Pathway, down some wooden steps and you’re on a black sand beach with waves perfect for surfers young and old and driftwood perfect for resting against and reading.
For an excellent cup of coffee you need only walk two minutes further down the walkway to the kiosk at Fitzroy Surf Lifesaving Club with beach views towards the city and beanbags to lounge on. It's got a busy community vibe about it like the surf clubs in Australia do.
But the first thing I did was walk downtown and rent a bike for five days because the Coastal Walkway is 13 kilometres long and I wanted to experience all its magnificence without having to squash everything into one day!
The walkway has off-shoots all over the place so no sooner had I pedalled out of the hire place and taken the first right than a branch appeared and down I flew, wind in my hair, green grass to the left, blue Tasman Sea on my right.
Heaven on two wheels!
I hadn’t pedalled more than few metres however than I had to dismount and watch as a tall, handsome man with a bandsaw was sculpting a large hunk of rock right in front of me.
Pulling out my phone to snap a picture he caught my eye and flashed a smile and a peace sign. “Hey I didn’t get that!” exclaimed a chap nearby with a giant camera in his hand. I laughed. “I think he saves it for the ladies.”
More than 20 sculptors were there under shade tents, a symphony of noise and dust forming the biennial Te Kupenga Stone Sculpture Symposium.
We checked back in over the next few days, following the sculptors’ progress as they coaxed dolphins, korus, bowls, tree trunks and torsos out of stone, chatting to each other and passersby about their work.
Next day was a Sunday and the pathway busy with locals and visitors as we cycled west from the holiday park, past the Fitzroy golf club. A 10-minute detour up Lake Rotomanu took us to a bike jump park - fun for some!
Rejoining the main path we crossed the iconic Te Rewa Rewa Bridge and pedaled onwards past dairy cows and paddocks to the Taranaki Cycle Park where we raced around a velodrome before heading back for a swim and a surf before lunch.
In the evening we walked down to Paris Plage, an outdoor container cafe beside the sea offering live music and pizzas from 4pm most summer Sundays. We got there after six but managed to catch some tunes from the mellow reggae band.
It was just like being in a picture postcard sitting there on the grass under a yellow umbrella as the sun set in the west.
Art is prominent in New Plymouth with the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/ Len Lye Centre taking centre stage in the city. Visitors pay an entrance fee of $15 but I think the building’s exterior is possibly more mesmerizing than what’s inside.
The wider district is peppered with artist studios and galleries, nearby Oakura offering a year-round self-guided art tour (phone ahead to make appointments) and open weekends in November.
An hours’ drive away the Percy Thomson Gallery in Stratford hosts a diverse and interesting range of exhibitions. We had one rainy day so an art tiki-tour was a fun way to fill it.
Surf Highway 45 is a beautiful stretch of coastline. Cruise east for an hour past rolling hills, rich farmland and ancient pa sites to Opunake and an impressive fence made of surfboards.
From there, turn inwards and wind up the flanks of Mt Taranaki. Enter densely wooded Egmont National Park, then maybe leave the car for a few minutes of forest bathing through moss and fern to Dawson Falls.
