Day in Edgemont National Park

Today, Cec and I headed to New Plymouth's Edgemont National Park.   This is where Mt. Taranaki is, and specifically, the 'goblin forest'.  It is about 1 1/2 hours from our house.  Cec had worked the night before, so we got on the road around 10am, and got to the local isite to pick up  a walking guide.  We  did two walks on the east side of the park.  It was the PERFECT day for a mini hike.  Clear skies and sun and about 65-68 degrees.  Perfect, basically.  The only real negative was that we came at the worst time of day for photos.  The sun was right at us so a lot of our pictures were blurry or hazy.  Don't worry, we have a few good ones though!

Our first track, the wilkes pool track, was around 1.5 hours to walk.  It is through the goblin forest, which is local beachtrees (mostly), ferns and tons of moss everywhere.  It creates a surreal atmosphere.  The track gets MUCH harder as you move on.  The first part is nice and woodedn pathway.  Once you get to the springs, it changes.  You end up crawling over a dry riverbed, then traversing several rocks, and then the paths get rocky, rooty, and wet.  Then, we crossed over the springs and hiked through some back country past several waterfalls and back again.  HERE is a video showing cec being bitter over a waterfall crossing and HERE is a video showing crossing one of the stream beds.

(View from the isite, BEAUTIFUL mountains.  We will be back in winter)

(Entering the trail... apparently they have a goat problem!!!)

(cec posing on the trail in the goblin forest)

(This is pretty much what a lot of the trees looked like.  Gnarled, moss covered and old)

(And HUGE!  They were so large)

 (Views from underneath made you feel like you were in another world)

(Here is a close up of that moss. It was like tiny ferns)

(Any breaks in the trees had mountain views for the most part)

(Oh, and waterfalls.... everywhere... hence the moss)

(The trail got a lot harder.  If you didnt watch the video of cec's waterfall crossing, I suggest you do HERE.  You had to climb up and down rocks, and yes I am being cheesy)

(Can you spot the cecil?)

(We climbed over 3 riverbeds.  Here is cecil trying to take photos of the mountain.)

(See the riverbed in the background?  That dark spot is where we came from... If you didn't watch the video in the paragraph of the riverbed crossing, HERE is is.)

After our first trek, we did a second walk through a similar forest, this time past Dawson's waterfall and back again on the Kapuni Loop Track.  This trek had a TON of stairs.  Like seriously it was a series of up and downs lol.  Mostly worth it.  We liked the first track much better.  After that, we grabbed some lunch and headed home.  Even though they were relatively short walks it turned into a full day!  We got back around 6, just in time for cec to fit an evening run in (I did my run trainer that morning thank goodness!).

Just a typical NZ day!!

  

(Dawnson's waterfall was HUGE)

(Creepy trees abound!  this one looked like a goblin could live in it!)

(and so many stairs.  Notice them behind me.)

(This is the road on the way out.  The moment you got to the park, you could tell it was a unique place, even on the roadway)