As with many indigenous peoples, certainly in the Pacific Northwest, the Māori who first came to Aotearoa/New Zealand a thousand years ago developed stories about the region's many volcanoes. These stories helped to explain their behaviors, like eruptions and lava flows, as well as the relationships between the Māori people and the land.
We spent about 10 days on the Taranaki peninsula - the first part in Whanganui, described in my last post - that juts out into the Tasman Sea on the west coast of the North Island. It's named for the conical Mt. Taranaki that defines this landscape and is notable for being quite distant from the cluster of volcanoes at the island's center., which is explained by this Maori story.
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Mt. Taranaki from our AirBnB in New Plymouth, a renovated sheep-shearing shed on a working farm.
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A Kate Dougherty painting of our "neighbors"
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We drove north from Whanganui along a coastline noted for its surfing beaching and over to New Plymouth on the volcano's north slope. Were surprised and puzzled by American flags flying all over town ... what was THAT all about? Were they appreciative of our support for Ukraine or what?? Nothing as political as all that; rather, we landed in New Plymouth for the annual "AmeriCARna" festival, a gather of American muscle cars of the 50s, 60s, and 70s and their owners from all across the country. It was great fun seeing all these hot cars from our youth!
In addition to the cars, we explored the local art galleries (check out this cool exhibit), road ebikes along the city's waterfront, and just enjoyed a bit of country living.
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Hundreds of American muscle cars and thousands of admirers.
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Can you name the make, model, and year?
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On our bike ride, Kate became part of a public art installation
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The bike- and walkway along New Plymouth's shoreline ... it can get a little wet!
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Installation at a New Plymouth gallery
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Our AirBnB ... can you believe it used to be a sheep-shearing shed??
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Beautiful coastline and love that volcanoe…and hey, Kate kept her shirt on for the art installation?
ReplyDeleteMary Miller
HA! to comment above. I was about to say something similar about Kate's attire, but was beaten to it. Glad to know there are others out there with similar thoughts. Nice cow painting to Kate. But no exposed utters there. And your Air BnB is great. Did it smell of lanolin?
ReplyDeleteTo whomever made this comment (please sign your name!): No lanolin smell in that refurrbed sheep shed … no smell at all, they did such a great job.
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