Today was spent mostly getting from Rotorua to New Plymouth, which means crossing the central plateau of the North Island to the west coast, for the New Zealand Creative Fibre Festival. Along the way we passed paddocks dotted mostly with cows but also a few sheep and deer. This region supports some of the most productive dairy farming in the world. Unfortunately, the reason for all this productivity (plenty of rain for spectacular pasture growth) caught up with us during the day but it didn’t really bother us in the coach.

We also passed through some excellent examples of New Zealand’s northern native forests, complete with tree ferns, our only native palm tree, the nikau, and epiphyte-laden rata trees. As we came into New Plymouth the clouds parted sufficiently for us to catch a glimpse of the snow-clad Mt Taranaki, the classic volcanic cone that forms the peninsula on which New Plymouth is located.