New Plymouth Travel Guide

Edit Section - New Plymouth Travel Guide - Hotels & Restaurants

You're probably thinking -New Plymouth, what's the matter with old Plymouth? Stoically lounging on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island, this medium sized city isn't an assault on the Pilgrim's disembarkation point, or any other buckle-shoed aspect of their fellow new world cousins. Rather, New Plymouth presents itself as a congenial, out of the way outpost in the outskirts of Kiwiland. Established as a 19th C. port city by European colonizers, it had previously been a refuge for continental whalers as well as a traditional home to several Maori tribes. Today, the sleepy city is economically situated around the proverbial cash cow of dairy farming. Bucolic, pastoral and out of the chock-o-block, and crushing sea of humanity-- that is Wellington, (pop. 163,000) New Plymouth makes due with just under 50,000 people. New Zealand is famous in general for having ten times as many sheep as people, but like the fierce Spartans who had to contend with similar odds in containing the Helots, the Kiwis have managed to outsmart and out pace their sheep in productivity, if not fecundity.

Edward Zwick's Tom Cruise 'Glory' vehicle, The Last Samurai, was actually partially filmed around the nearby Mt. Taranaki, a dormant stratovolcano which looks (as strato volcanos have been known to do) strikingly like Mt. Fuji. New Plymouth is notable not so much for its Top Gun action hero status, but for its topography; Neo Plymouthians can surf, snowboard, sail and ski all in one day, as the slopes are only a scant hour away from the sandy surf. Check your favorite band's touring schedule as New Plymouth provides headliners an amazing outdoor venue in their local park. Oldies like REM and budding talent like Bright Eyes have nightswam through town in between shows in Auckland and Wellington. Before blasting off on your road trip for brighter pastures, buy a postcard of the Windwand, a 45m tall, bendy red straw with a white ball on top. This avant garde treasure swirls in the breeze not unlike an enormous Jack N' The Box antenna bobble in highway winds.

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