Discover Taranaki’s Surf Highway 45
Keep a snowcapped Mt Taranaki on your left on a journey from New Plymouth to Hawera, and you can’t go wrong. Hopefully, the maunga’s perfect volcanic peak will be cloud-free as you negotiate Taranaki’s Surf Highway, taking time to detour down side roads to the skeletal remains of the SS Gairloch shipwreck just south of Ōakura, or the Cape Egmont Lighthouse at Pungarehu on Taranaki’s western-most point. Look forward to brisk westerlies and a winter Tasman swell rolling in all the way from Australia.
Don’t miss
Two of regional New Zealand’s best galleries and museums, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth, and the Tawhiti Museum in Hāwera.