Egmont National Park , (Mt Taranaki) New Zealand . (4k)

The Egmont National Park is one of New Zealands oldest National parks and is situated on the west coast of the North Island midway between Auckland and Wellington. Centred around Mt Taranaki a dormant stratovolcano in the Taranaki region The 2,518-metre (8,261 ft) mountain has a secondary cone, Fanthams Peak (Māori: Panitahi), 1,966 metres (6,450 ft), on its south side. Mt Taranakis' last eruption was in 1655 with the average period between mayor eruptions being 500 years.

The park has many walking tracks and two main road entrances, this video features two of these road entrances, access on the northern side from Egmont Village and on the southern side via Straford and the Dawson Falls.

The access on the northern side has one of our most scenic drives winding through the native forest with occasion glimpses of the mountain and terminating at the visitor centre and "Camphouse".

The Camphouse at North Egmont is one of the oldest surviving corrugated-iron buildings in the world. It is one section of barracks imported from Melbourne in 1855 to house imperial troops in New Plymouth. After the last troops left in 1870, the colonial Armed Constabulary occupied the complex. For a few years in the mid-1870s part of it was used as temporary housing for new immigrants to Taranaki. This part of the building was moved to North Egmont in 1891 for tourist accommodation. The hand-wrought iron sheets are several millimetres thick, and gun slits were cut in some of them. (Te Ara - the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand) )

I have friends in the area and have spent a lot of time in the region over several decades including many happy memories of trundling up and down the road to the Camphouse in everything from hot sunny summer days to very snowy freezing winter days. Sitting on the big timber bench seat on the Camphouse veranda and contemplating "life the universe and everything" definitely ranks as one of my "happy places". From this vantage point you can also see all of the central North Island volcanos.

Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_T...
The Camphouse https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/2...


Equipment :

Cameras : Canon 50d, 5Dii and 5Div
Lens : Canon 24-105 4L, 70-200 4L, 15-35 4L
Camera bags : ThinkTank Retrospective 30, LoPro AW 400 Backpack
Image editing : Adobe Photoshop CC
Video : Adobe Elements Premier

#mttaranaki,#taranaki,#newplymouth,#dawsonfalls,#thecamphouse