Checking out New Plymouth

The biggest city in the Taranaki region is New Plymouth. Sarah and Mat took me to New Plymouth to check it out. At the beginning of the day, I went to the Opunake beach to check it out. (Opunake is Mat's hometown.) The waves have been particularly big lately, so I'm told. The area kind of reminds me of the Oregon Coast.

Then it was into the car for the 40 minute drive to New Plymouth. We started with a visit to Mat's grandmother. She was very nice and she also makes a mean little pancake. Very delicious. Then we went to check out Pukekura Park.

This is a large park in the city that hosts a cricket field. This cricket field was also one of the location shoots for the Tom Cruise movie, The Last Samurai. And aside from some minor changes, like the removal of the light posts and, when the camera was facing the other direction, the CGI removal of the city scape beyond the entrance gate, the cricket field was shown almost exactly as it really appears. I guess I now have to watch that movie again.

Pukekura Park has a fairly large lake in the middle of it, with trees sprawling across it...

...and a bridge or two. This one is called the Poet's Bridge. Unfortunately, despite its rather cerebral name, it is actually named after a race horse called The Poet. But I pretended that poets went to the bridge and composed sonnets and couplets and haikus and other such verse.

Then we walked further along to the amphitheater. Among others, Cliff Richard and Elton John have performed on this stage, presumably to much smaller audiences than they normally would. It really looked like a great place to go and watch some concert or other performance.

There was also a zoo in the park. A free zoo. It wasn't very big, but it had a farm animal area, and a free flying bird cage. Inside there were lots of birds, including this parrot.

My favourites were the monkeys. They were cool.

Then we went to watch part of a rugby match at the local stadium, but unfortunately Mat's team didn't start off too well, so we left before too long. As we were leaving there was a rather awesome try scored. (A try is the main point getting play in the game of rugby.) And even for someone who knows next to nothing about rugby, I thought it was an awesome play. A well executed play, in any sport, seems to convey some sort of elegant signal of its awesomeness. After the rugby, we visited another friend of Mat's for a while. And we finished off with a visit to the coastal walk of New Plymouth. New Plymouth has been working on a walking path along the waterfront that allows people the chance to experience the natural beauty of the area. As part of that effort, they built a rather nice bridge to cross a river in the area. However, it was a bit weird. There is this quite attractive bridge over a river linking two rather barren areas of pathway. I imagine there are plans for the area to make it all attractive and eventually the bridge will fit in.

Meanwhile there is an breathtaking view of Mt. Taranaki towering over the area. When clouds aren't obscuring the view, that is.

 And I took a photo of Mat, Sarah and Jacob on the bridge.