The Great ACT-NSW-NZ Trip, 2023-2024 - Taranaki Ringplain
After Pohokura we spent a couple of days on the west coast of North Island - specifically, in the vicinity of Taranaki/Mt. Egmont, a young stratovolcano that is the most recent volcano in a long sequence of slowly migrating volcanism in the area. The hills to the northwest, and the plugs at the coast at New Plymouth, are all that remain of its predecessors. In fact, the entire ring of flattish and highly fertile land in Taranaki is the result of the repeated catastrophic collapse of the volcanoes over the last 1.75 million years.
The photo below was taken from Cape Egmont 30 kilometers from the volcano. Even out here there are layers of fridge-sized boulders deposited by the giant volcanic landslides.
The plugs at New Plymouth, 1.75 myo.
Historically, the area consisted of a narrow coastal plain covered by bracken, tutu, rewarewa and karaka trees, with anywhere not close to the coast covered in dense forest.
From about 1823 the Māori began having contact with European whalers and flax traders. English settlers were first dropped here in 1841, and within a year were trying to deal with plagues of the rats they brought with them.
The stuff we saw on the volcano itself I'll cover seperately, but there was no shortage of species in New Plymouth, along the coast, at Lake Mangamahoe, and where we were staying.
