A holiday in Taranaki

With the school holidays in April, it was the first time for ages that the kids and I can go on a holiday, because of all that other stuff that I’m tired of writing about.

My wife was stuck at home with work commitments, so it was up to me to get the kids out and about.

After booking some accomodation, and discreetly making sure they aren’t still discriminating, I got my teenage kids in the car, and we were off on our adventure.

We had planned to do the Coastal walk in New Plymouth, and we set aside the next day to do this.

We spent the day on the the walkway which hugs the coast all the way along. At one point we were very close to a shopping center, so it was inevitible that the girls wanted to ‘have a look’. I managed to escape to a skateboard shop while they did the rounds.

Eventually we got to the Kawarau pools where the kids went swimming, and Dad got to put his feet up and have another coffee and chocolate cake while the kids aren’t looking..

By the time we had walked back to our accomodation, we had walked a total of 16km (10 miles). This meant that the kids walked in the door and just crashed for the night.

That night, we went to Pukekura park to see the annual ‘festival of lights’ but unfortunately they were done for the year.

Not to be outdone, we just stumbled around in the dark and then went back the next day for a better look.

The drive home the next day was uneventful, except for a stop in Mokau to get some whitebait fritters, which are hard to get back home.