Whanganui

What's up? 

Another stop on the way to Mount Taranaki was Whanganui. This small town is quite famous for its many diverse street art walls and sculptures.   

So, after a nice chat with the lady at the information center, I took a little look around. I primarily headed to the information center because I wanted to know which hikes in the area were recommended at that time and what tips the area had to offer. The information centers in NZ are really good, and the staff there always knows what's currently great to discover and recommends some things that travelers might not notice at first glance. Additionally, I also got informed about the local freedom camping sites, and after that, I decided to go to a campsite instead. 

Besides the amazing wall graffiti, there are also some sculptures to discover: 

The buildings themselves were quite cool too, as the whole town has a modern settler touch. It's as if the first settler houses were just slightly modernized, and that was it. After the walk through the town, I headed to the campsite by the sea. Upon arrival, I grabbed a ginger beer and then went to the beach for the sunset. The owner mentioned that it would be a great sunset, but that was not quite the case. However, the beach was pretty cool, and I also did a bit of video calling home during that time (not quite like E.T. but still in a different time zone). 

The weather was, as you can see in the pictures, unfortunately not that great, and it was not particularly good for the upcoming days either. A plus was that the campsite had a sauna. Unfortunately, the sauna was not that great, and it was also disappointing that the owner only switched on the sauna shortly before, so the half hour I had booked was not enough to really get the sauna hot. Consequently, it was just a lukewarm experience. In general, the campsite was overpriced for what I got. Well - that can just happen sometimes. The next day, I was also pretty okay with heading to the next spot. But before heading to the next place, I aimed for the really cute café across the street to enjoy a delicious coffee and do a bit of blogging. That was really nice and helped calm my restless self a bit. Every now and then, I find myself so caught up in exploration that I forget to take breaks and need to incorporate a bit more of the 'doing nothing' or taking it slow back into my routine. 

After the coffee, I continued on to Hawera for the next rainy days. The weather worsened on the way there. However, this did not detract from the landscape, and the cliff coast looked fantastic. 

I arrived at the next campsite in the rain and chilled there for the next 3 days, mostly watching shows and movies. More about that and my bad weather plans in the next post. 

Sending hugs. 
Yours, Britta