Day 155 & 156 Taumarunui & Mokau

The weather forecast for today is rain, rain and more rain.  The plan was to follow Hwy 4 north until it meets Hwy 3 at 8 Mile Junction.  We would take Hwy 3 south west until it reaches the coast before turning south.  The eventual destination for the day would be New Plymouth.

The reason for this route is the drive along the coast north of New Plymouth that we have been told is pretty spectacular.  The rain and fog, however, has forced us to rethink our course of action.  You can't enjoy what you can't see.  So we decided just to do the first part of the journey and stop at Mokau which is right on the coast.  In fact it is the first town on the coast with a Holiday Park.

We would wait there until tomorrow when hopefully the weather will co-operate and give us a sunny day to make the trip down the coast.

We set out and almost immediately it started raining and to add insult to injury we hit construction.

It was unfortunate the weather was in a foul mood as what we could see of the scenery was actually quite picturesque.  We did manage to take a few shots through the window of the van and the rain did slow down in places that allowed us to get out and take a few other pictures.

We reached Mokau in the early afternoon and decided to stay at the local holiday park and try our luck with the weather in the morning.

We did run into a little luck in the afternoon when the rain stopped long enough for us to go for better than a one hour walk on the beach.  It was a beautiful black sand beach and most likely due to the weather we had the beach to ourselves.  The tide was out and it was a nice way to spend the afternoon.

We did have a nice sunset that gave us a little hope for tomorrow. We stayed the extra day hoping the weather would change for the better.  Time will tell.

We gambled and we lost, Day 156 was not any better, in fact it was worse.  It had rained all night and continued in the morning and all through the day. We had no choice but to hunker down for the day and hope that tomorrow would be better.  We thought we might get another walk when it stopped raining in the afternoon but it was just teasing us.  As soon as we got ready to go the sky’s opened up again and killed that plan.  Tomorrow we have to leave regardless of the weather.