10/4/09 Good Friday. A lot of the day was spent driving from Raglan to New Plymouth, but when we stopped at a supermarket to get a couple of drinks I made sure to get a packet of hot cross buns for ourselves! Strictly speaking we didn't stay in New Plymouth itself, but at a carvan park/campsite in the little village of Oakura nearby. This was next to a beautiful beach. The main attraction in this wider area is Mount Egmont, and although we didn't climb it, we got some spectacular views of it! I think it's the first mountain I've seen firsthand that's actually tall enough to have its top covered in snow and wreathed in cloud. The weather was very changeable, hot and sunny one moment and then cloudy and rainy the next.
Before we drove to the campsite, we parked up outside St Mary's church in New Plymouth, because I'd read that there were gravestones of some of the earliest colonial settlers in New Plymouth, a couple of the local Maori chiefs of the time who had impressed the British by their bravery, and some soldiers who had been fighting the Maori in the land wars at the time. After we'd looked at the gravestones, I thought I'd have a look inside, in case there was more historical stuff there (it's the oldest church in New Plymouth.) However, due to it being Good Friday, we ended up having to walk round a 'trail' they had set up inside - through a lot of the rooms attached to the church - about the story of Good Friday, before we mnaged to find our way into the church itself. There were a lot of interesting plaques and old military pennants on the walls, so I was happy.

11/4/09 Today we also looked round the town and visited the museum. This contained the usual colonial and Maori info and artifacts, but also had a collection of stuffed animals and a big metal diving suit from many decades ago. It must have been incredibly cumbersome to use, and quite dangerous as well, bearing in mind the only thing giving you air was a tube running up to the surface; if that broke then if you were too far down to get up safely and in time, you'd be done for! Nearby there was a very small colonial stone cottage, one of I think only three orginal stone buildings which survive in New Plymouth, so I also had a look round that. We also walked to the point where lots of colonial ships used to land, where there was a statue which was apparently quite controversial when first put up - it's the 'Windwand', a very long (7-10 m) bendy wand which waves in the wind.
It was too cold and the weather still too changeable for us to swim on the beach at Oakura, but we had a walk along it when we got back from town.