Taranaki Weekend - Getting there

This weekend Fleetwood Mac were playing in New Plymouth. We were some of the very lucky people that got tickets. Peter, my eldest, my youngest and I set off to make a weekend of it. It is a 5hr drive over to Taranaki, with a slight delay at road works, to admire the wind turbines. We also stopped in Palmerston North for a bit of Christmas shopping, some lunch and a very needed toilet break. Unfortunatly not much Christmas shopping was done when I found a clothes shop I like had a half price sale.

As soon as we left Palmerston Peter started asking. Can you see Taranaki yet (Taranaki is a volcano set in very flat land). No we said. Can you see it yet. No we said. Can you see it yet (Peter was quite keen to get a view of the mountain). Oh is that it over there. Hmm maybe. Oh no that is Ruapeho and Tongario over in the opposite direction. Can you see it yet. For goodness sake, I said, its probably behind the clouds. So we all looked up, the clouds moved and we could see it peaking at us, like a view from a Japanese picture. This was the last glimpse we got, it was shrouded in clouds the rest of the journey.
Later on after a really brilliant walk on the beach, we came around the corner, the clouds were gone and there it was again in its full splendour.

It is difficult from the photo to get the full scale of mountain. If you look closely you can see the cloud layer. Below is the view from the deck of the house we were staying in, with the sunset changing the snow to pale pink. I think we were very lucky to see this view, usually the mountain is shrouded in cloud and hidden.