1st time to taranaki...

Taranaki (otherwise known as The Naki ) is north west of Wellington, and I've just got back from my first trip there! I went up for a science conference (my first one!) but it was a good opportunity to see some of the place too :)

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Famous for the mountain, dairy farms (on the fertile volcanic plains around the mountain) and surfing on the coast, Taranaki is definitely a small piece of the South Island on the North Island...

The Conference went really well. I was a bit scared because it was my first one, but there were lots of familiar faces there which was nice! Met some new people too, and definitely learned a bit more about whats going on with freshwater science in NZ... There was also a presentation given about the Trout Eradication Trial which I helped out with earlier in the year, if you are interested you can have a look at it here.

On the second day, I skipped the 'poster session' to go and visit the mountain with Jess and her boyfriend. It had been overcast the day before, but it clouds were starting to clear!!

The forest on the mountain is beautiful, lots of ancient trees


Go Fishy go!

Lots of Mountain Cabbage Trees

And lots of them were flowering too, which look very different from normal cabbage trees...

Me with the mountain

The clouds over the summit were awesome!

It would have been nice to climb to the summit, but it's an 8 hour walk, and it was already about 4pm so we only went for a little walk up the track to see the forest.After that we headed back into New Plymouth, to check out the famous Botanic Gardens.

This is me sitting on the trunk of a (very) old wisteria...

The Mountain in the background - this was the view a century ago

There were heaps of ducklings about too, and this duck had 16 all to herself!

Cool waterfall

That evening we had fish n chips on the beach

And watched the surfers too

Cool beetle!

That night I went back to the Botanics, and there were lots of lights in the trees, very flash

Same view over the lake with the Mountain in the background

On the last day we went on field trips. I did the Wetland Monitoring trip, and felt right at home in the Raupo!

We had dinner at Yarrow Stadium that night, and most people dressed up. The theme was 'provincial and proud' but I don't have any Hurricane clothes, so wore my Scotland rugby top and painted a St Andrews cross on my face :)
Half way through the meal the fire alarm went off and we all had to wait outside until the fire brigade arrived and gave us the all clear...
It was a good trip!