Mount Taranaki

After leaving Wellington we drove northwest to Hawera, a town at the base of Mount Taranaki.  Mount Taranaki, aka Mount Egmon, is an active but quiescent stratovolcano.  It is "overdue" for an eruption, with seismic activity likely in the next 50 years.  But first, we went to our campsite for the night.

We came for the giant volcano, stayed for the giant rabbit!  She was friendly and loved bananas.  The campground host shared she had adopted him when the community was looking for a permanent home for him.  He had been to 5 different homes in about 3 years; it was time for a more permanent placement.  She said that at first she would put him in the cage in the evenings, but as he got more and more familiar with the campgrounds it became harder and harder to catch him, until finally she did away with the cage entirely, and he just sleeps under the hedges.

There's also a cat that's allowed to sleep on the dining room table.  Which I think is a little gross - she's an outdoor kitty.

Caryl tried to show her who's boss; she couldn't have cared less.

The next day we had planned to climb to the submit of Mount Taranaki.  The weather was pretty bad - clouds and rain - so we did some other, shorter, walks instead.

Wilkes Pool (water flowing through volcanic rock).

Dawson Falls.

The weather cleared up a tiny bit...

Our best view of Mount Taranaki.

Driving back to our campground we passed through the bread capitol.  Not pictured - a lichen at the top of the bread looked just like mold.  We couldn't get a good shoot without getting run over.

Back to an evening of feeding the rabbit bananas!

The next day we tried again to summit the mountain from another angle - the weather was even worse.  They say there's a volcano between those trees - we never saw it, so can't confirm.  The weather forecast was bad for the next few days in this area, so we had to give up on Mt. Taranaki.  It was a tough call to make.