A Sudden Storm

When I first got to New Plymouth and was finding my way around town and meeting lots of new people, I would often get asked if it snows where I grew up. Then I would hear about the one time a few years ago when it snowed in town (the mountain is frequently covered in snow, but it is too warm in town, it hardly gets below freezing), just enough to have a light dusting on the ground, but that was enough to halt all driving, and send people home from work and school halfway through the day.

Having been here for nearly 18 months now, I have grown accustomed to the warmer temperatures (especially now that it is Spring, yay!), so I was just as surprised as the local when the weather took an unexpected turn one day last week.

I always leave work right at 4pm on Wednesdays so that I am home in time to teach a piano lesson. Right about 3:30 last Wednesday, the sunny day suddenly went to dreary dark cloudy. By 3:50 it had gotten quite windy and was starting to rain. By 4:07 when I was nearly halfway home, it was pouring buckets of rain and then it started to hail. By the time I reached downtown, traffic was nearly at a standstill and there was increasing amount of standing water everywhere (it was still raining) because the pea-sized hail was clogging the drains.
It took me half an hour to get home that day (it normally takes 10-12 depending whether the lights are red or green). I must say I was impressed with how drivers handled the weather. Everyone slowed down and was extra cautious and mindful of everyone else, which was quite relieving.

According to the newspaper in the next couple days, there were no major accidents, but downtown did experience a significant amount of flooding. Since the drains started clogging, water just ran up on the sidewalks and then into stores restaurants, anywhere. The storm was over in about an hours time, but even now you can see places just starting to dry out or get cleaned up from all the water.

Just past where the hail started, it was only downtown that got more than a bit of rain

My driveway

Hail-drifts downtown

A local adventure

Labor day in the US is the unofficial end of summer. In NZ, it is the unofficial start of summer. The last Monday of October is New Zealand’s labor day so we had a three day weekend to enjoy. The weather being temperamental as usual for this time of year, only one of the 3 days was predicted to be sunny. So I decided to make the most of it and planned a day trip to some local spots which I had not yet had the opportunity to explore (the joy of having my own car is I can up and go when and where I want, yay!). I did not plan a terribly long day as I had wanted a bit of a sleep-in, and had to be back in time for the long-awaited Mexican night with my Japanese friends, but I was armed with a picnic, camera, and enthusiasm and off I went down SHWY 3.

First stop was the Mt. Damper Falls. Several times I’ve seen the sign as I passed the turn-off and since it said it was only 27k down the road, I figured it would be a fun little detour off the highway. I forgot however, that 27k (about 17 miles) on a New Zealand is not the breezy drive that you would find on say a straight and flat Kansas highway. It took over half an hour to drive all the way to the falls (you can go 100k in an hour on a non-windy flat-ish road). The lovely scenic drive started out a nice paved two lane highway alongside a river that had lots of whitebait fishers on it. After a while it got narrow, then turned to gravel with a gorge on one side and a massive rocky cliff face on the other. It turned back to blacktop just in time to go up the windy road to the top of Mt. Damper. Once you reached the top, you parked and walked through a pasture full of sheep, then through a woodland trail until you suddenly popped out into the sunshine and saw the waterfall (only a 10-15 minute walk). The view was definitely worth the drive, I’d happily return at some stage. It was definitely one of those trips where the journey was as exciting as the destination, as you never knew what the next corner would bring.

Once my car had found its way back to the highway, we headed for Mokau. Mokau is a lovely little seaside town just past the Taranaki-Waikato line. There is not a lot to do there, but there is a nice beach where I wanted to enjoy the picnic. It was a bit windy, but it was sunny and warm and I nearly fell asleep, which was just lovely J

 After packing up the leftovers from lunch, it was time to mosey towards home (as lunch did not really happen until around 2pm), but had one more stop planned along the way. There is a rock formation called “The Three Sisters” that I had not been able to see yet, as you can only reach the site when the tide is out. It is just around the corner from Mokau, at Tongaporutu. After parking at the beach, you walk down the coast a bit past some caves until you emerge in a lovely spot where you can see Elephant and the Sisters. Right now there are only 2 as one has broken off, but in time, another will emerge from the cliffs due to erosion of wind and sea. Due to the changing tides, there was not a lot of time to spend exploring, but had a chance to enjoy walking among the rock formations and taking lots of pictures J