Day 18: New Plymouth - Foxton Beach

As forecast, the weather wasn't looking too good this morning. Although it started pretty sunny the forecast was for a rain front to draw in very quickly and stay over the area for the rest of the day.

I therefore cancelled any plans of cycling up Mt. Taranaki and instead drove up there instead straight after breakfast. Timed it well as I got up to the parking area at the end of the road just before it started raining.

So there wasn't much else to do other than drive down and then follow the "Surf Highway" around the west and south of the volcano. The name is a little misleading. Whilst there are many signs pointing off to numerous surf beaches the road is very seldom less than 1-2 kms from the coast.

It was still raining heavily when I reached what was planned to be tonight's stopover - Wanganui. Now I'm not sure if Wanganui looks great on a sunny day but on a rainy day it narrowly beats it's near neighbour Palmerston North. In fact if you group them together with the town of Bulls (I'm sure they've shortened it's name by removing 3 important letters) which lies in the middle of the three towns I guess you could call it the "panelbeater belt".

Suffice to say I decided to cut my losses and get a bit of tomorrow's driving out of the way by continuing further south and closer to Wellington. I was hoping to find a place close to the ocean and duly did. Found a small quiet motel in Foxton Beach - one of many summer house / weekender townships dotted along the west coast. So this leaves me just 100 kms to get to Wellington tomorrow where I need to return the rental car by 1pm.

With luck I'll get some time to ride along the coast or go for a beach walk after breakfast before continuing south.

So today was a quiet day for once but on reflection I think I needed a "rest day". Took a drive along to the beach once the rain had stopped. Note the speed limit for driving on the beach.

Then of course the day concludes with the "Panorama of the day".