A day of spectacular Taranaki views

We had hoped to do a hike up to the Pouakai Tarns near Mt. Taranaki today which is a small pond up on a hill that offers amazing reflective views of the volcano. Unfortunately the weather was predicted to be quite cloudy so we didn't want to risk doing the walk and not being able to see anything so instead we have decided to stay in the area for another night because the weather is meant to be really clear tomorrow. Instead we decided to explore a few places around the coast that surrounds the mountain. We headed first to Cape Egmont lighthouse which is on the west coast in relation to the volcano. Surprisingly the lighthouse was about 500m in land and you had to walk through someone's property to access it. You couldn't walk up it but it did give us a great view of Mt. Taranaki. The more we looked we did wonder if we should of done the walk today but knowing it's about a 5-6 hour return walk by the time you get up there the cloud that was predicted could of really swept in. The wind by the coast here was so strong that it just confirmed how quickly the weather front was moving. After battling with the wind to get back into the van we drove to Lake Mangamahoe and had some lunch before we began to walk the circuit route around the lake. Within a few minutes the track went up to a view point that gave us some pretty amazing views of Taranaki and the lake below. Unfortunately after passing the dam the rest of the lake circuit walk barely showed us the lake at all which was a little disappointing. The walk wasn't too interesting until we reached a section of the forest made up of huge redwood trees. It's the first time we have seen redwood trees before and their size was insane. It was such a cool section of forest to explore. They'd obviously been planted here but the reserve had a sign saying they plan to let them continue to grow and will not have them cut down as was originally planned when they were planted years ago. Soon after the walk reached the end of the lake near where the road is the rest of the track is down the road we came in on. Luckily it is more exposed so we got some lovely views of the lake and the mountain as we returned back to the van. We headed to our amazing freedom camping site at the base of Taranaki in the information centre carpark for the night. The view we have from the van is amazing and we are so excited to be hiking up towards the volcano tomorrow. We plan to wake up nice and early to get a good start on the walk as there is limited parking and cloud is predicted at about 1pm. We've had a few people come into the carpark in fast cars and utes and drive over the sections of plants around the parking and generally being idiots. I think it's because the road is 16km up to the centre and is very windy so it's probably "fun" to drive it fast. Hopefully that's all the issues we will have tonight and no one else will come from now on!Read more