A trip around Mt Taranaki is a magical experience.
It is a near-perfect cone, an exquisite geological phenomena that translates, in cartographical terms, to a fascinating map. Mt Taranaki — Mt Egmont to some — that perfect cone, erupted periodically for 135,000 years, growing higher and pointier, and, in so doing, created the vast half-circle of land that elbows out from the centre of the North Island into the Tasman Sea.
My map has 50 minor roads extending like spokes of a wheel towards the centre of the mountain and two ring roads circling it, one roughly following the coast. In 1881, tuned-in to this fine volcanic symmetry, a cartographer put his compass point on the mountain's paper peak, drew a circle with a six-mile radius (9.6km) and bingo, Egmont National Park was born.
Now, 134 years later, intensely farmed and brilliantly green dairy pasture butts up to the mostly circular park boundary and, on the other side of the fence, magnificent old-growth forest looms.
For those fascinated by maps, as I happen to be, the Taranaki map is an invitation to drive around the mountain. This we do, on a pretty autumn day, Sam driving and me navigating. The mountain is clear with a wisp of cloud, feather boa-like, trailing from her tip. The sun is low and tree shadows on the road have a strobe-like flicker but mostly we pass lush, flat pasture land, cows milked already, heads down and grazing.
It is too early for action at Inglewood. The Fun Ho! toy museum doesn't open until 10am but the life-size, funky fire engine on the roof reminds me of the fun my brothers used to have with their Fun Ho! tractors and trailers in the sandpit in my very distant childhood. The company has been making indestructible toys since 1935 and still hand-casts them using the same old moulds.
Do children enjoy these toys now? They don't beep, whirr or transform. Nostalgic granddads could be the biggest fans of the museum.
Fun Ho! Toy Museum, Taranaki.
The Inglewood-Stratford road is arrow-straight. The farms on each side reek of prosperity: balloon-udder cows in tidy pastures, trimmed hedges and rows of large round hay bales, wrapped in discreet green plastic, are tucked under macrocarpa trees.
Milk tankers feature often on the road, zooming past, picking up white gold to take to the mega-factory at Whareroa, near Hawera. Whareroa is the only major milk-receiving plant in the region now, although lactose is made at Kapuni and cheeses at Eltham.
We pass the massive industrial remains of Midhurst Dairy Factory, the largest of 112 defunct factories scattered around the mountain. Economies of scale and buy-outs doomed them to redundancy. Many are derelict but others have a new life as farm storage, artists' studios and mechanics' and engineers' yards. One is a bacon factory, another a possum-products factory and, in a full circle, one is home to a boutique organic cheese maker.
These left-behind dairy factories, usually tucked into valleys alongside streams, are part of Taranaki's unique character.
Stratford is busy and bustling. The dairy farms, despite recent grumbles about the price paid for milk solids, bring prosperity and the town features big 4WD cars belonging to mums doing the school run and rosy-cheeked farmers in shiny utes.
Oakura Beach. Photo / Kenny Rodger
The air of prosperity extends to breakfast. At Nelson's Cafe I have the biggest bran muffin ever cooked and Sam has a man-sized omelette (three eggs) and numerous rashers of bacon with great slabs of toast.
While he works through this I stroll around town and discover Kings Theatre, 1918, the first venue in the southern hemisphere to show talking movies, in 1925. Beat that, Sydney and Buenos Aires. Almost 100 years years later it's still a theatre.
From Stratford we turn right and drive up the mountain to Dawson Falls. Inside the boundary of Egmont National Park the road is spectacular, initially passing through ancient forest where massive rata and rimu dominate, often touching, tunnel-like, above the road.
At higher altitudes the road becomes skinny and curly and the cuttings are lined with vivid green ferns. Higher even, the trees, stunted by wind, cold and altitude, take on a bonsai effect.
Dawson Falls are not special but the walk to it is. The trees are dark-limbed and gnarly and decorated with skeins of pale hanging moss. Filmy ferns grow up their trunks and the ground is covered with soft velvety emerald moss. It is goblin-esque and gorgeous.
Down the mountain, at Kaponga (a few houses, a pub, a shop or two, a war memorial and an old dairy factory), the map tells me the road is straight for 25km to Opunake.
The cartographer didn't take into account the many rivers that run from the mountain to the sea so the road swoops up green rolling hills, down forest-clad valleys and over small bridges and dark rivers where water rushes around rocks. This is picture-postcard country.
At Opunake we meet the sea. The beach, protected by two massive headlands, is famous, in Taranaki, for swimming and surf. Opunake's ambience is a combination of surfer-and-backpacker, retired-farmer and country-service town.
It has an attractive lake, created in a dammed valley in 1922, still providing electricity. It feels sad to be only passing through this sweet spot.
We join Highway 45, Surf Highway, a moniker it was given because of the many surf breaks on the coast nearby. It is 26km to Cape Egmont and its lighthouse.
I love lighthouses, white exclamation marks valiantly shining to keep mariners safe, and this one is a beauty. Built in 1877, Cape Egmont Lighthouse is 20m tall and perches on a knobbly little hill that gives it another 12m of reach.
I really, really want a good photo of the lighthouse with the beloved mountain in the background. The problem is although the sky is full of sun, the mountain is hiding behind cloud. So we wait. Sam declares it beer-and-snack o'clock and explores the chilly bin. I explore the rocky low-tide foreshore and the mountain coyly plays hide and seek, exposing the pointed peak then a curved flank but never her whole glorious self.
Oakura, a beach village 15km south of New Plymouth, is the next stop. It seems that all after-work New Plymouth is here to enjoy the last of the golden weather: people surf, swim, frolic in the shallows, ride horses, walk dogs and kayak.
I plunge into the feisty, fizzing surf and get regularly bowled over. It is divine. It blows away the creaky lethargy of spending hours in a car.
It is dusk when we drive the final few kilometres to New Plymouth to complete the round-the-mountain circle.
The mountain has discarded her shroud of cloud and is a dark silhouette against a peachy sky. We stop and stand on the side of the road and admire her. Mt Taranaki, reassuringly ever-present in the centre of the sublime landscape she created is also moody, unpredictable - always changing yet always the same.
IF YOU GO
It's about 170km around Mt Taranaki, including side-trips. Treat yourself to a proper map. You can't get a sense of the geography with a cellphone.
Liz Light stayed in the refurbished Devon Hotel, part of the Heritage Group, in the heart of the city.
