Egmont National Park

Egmont National Park was our first stop after Wellington. As it was a 3-4 hour drive to here we didn't reach it until late afternoon so we decided to stay a night in a little town called Opunake and tackle the national park in the morning. The hostel we stayed in was just off the highway and was a strange set up. We had booked ahead the night before so we arrived expecting to be able to check in straight away. Instead there was no one there as the hostel was locked up and after an hour wait we began to think the hostel was abandoned and we had been conned out of our 10% deposit. We waited for 30 mins more (only because we had paid a deposit) and then noticed someone in the garden of the hostel. It turned out it was the owner who has a young family and was at swimming lessons as if we were to know thats where she was! The family lived at the bottom level of the house which was seperated from the top part, which was the hostel. We were surprised to find that we were the only people staying in the hostel (maybe because they had gave up waiting outside on the owner coming back from swimming lessons). It was worth the wait I suppose as no one checked in after us so we had the hostel to ourselves which apparently you can rent for $400 but we got for $50! The only downside was the hostel was supposed to have wifi but it turned out it was refering to the library that was across the road. Typically this happened to be the night that T in the Park Tickets went on sale and we could pick up the libarys wifi but as it was out of hours it was turned off so we had to rely on Colins Dad to get us them but he was unable to. Thankfully Colin and I have decided that he will ground Iain and give us his tickets to make up for it!!!!

Egmont National Park is home to Mount Taranaki (also known to Europeans as Mount Egmont) James cook named it after the Earl of Egmont in 1770. The mountain is 8,309ft above sea level and can be seen for miles.

What attracted us to the area was how cool it looked on the map. To see what we mean look at a map of New Zealand and find Egmont National Park in the South-West of the North Island.

Mount Taranaki is notorious for its ever changing weather conditions. One minute it could be sunny and the next there could be torrential rain and it is one of the wettest areas in New Zealand.

The National Park has more than 300km (180 miles) of walking tracks that lead through forests, past waterfalls and across mountain streams. We only had a short while to spend in the park and the owner from our hostel recommended going to see Dawson Falls which has some nice walks, the main one being the walk to see the 50ft high Dawson Falls. It was quite a nice relaxed walk that would prepare us for our more ambitious challenge the next day.