Gloom Blooms in New Plymouth, NZ

Senash Thenuja
3 min readJan 1, 2024

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I tell you what: New Zealand is stunning with or without sunlight. It always holds up secrets for a curious eye to unveil.

Last weekend, we headed over to New Plymouth, a coastal city cradled between the Tasman Sea and the iconic Mount Taranaki along the west coast of New Zealand.

It was a nearly 4-hour long road trip from where we lived. Our main hope was to see the majestic Mount Taranaki.

Unfortunately, the grey sky and the heavy rain weren’t that promising.

Throughout the trip, all we could observe was the gloomy environment. Nice.

Still, something was fascinating about the gloom. It gave us a unique experience compared to the images of Mount Taranaki and New Plymouth we had seen.

And, so we went along and enjoyed the gloom.

Te Rewa Rewa Bridge in the gloom

Our first stop was Te Rewa Rewa Bridge. Usually, you can see Mount Taranaki, right through this bone-like loop. But, the clouds stole that view away from us.

Cape Egmont Lighthouse

The next day, we reached the Cape Egmont Lighthouse (42km away from New Plymouth). Again, the clouds stole the stunning view of Mount Taranaki. Yet, I loved the cryptic mood they generated.

The beach near the Cape Egmont Lighthouse

What’s more, we could even see the annual Festival of Lights in New Plymouth. This time, the gloomy environment came in handy to intensify the effect of lights.

Here are some of the photos we captured.

Finally, we reached the bottom of Taranaki. We could only see the lower part of the mountain while its upper part was wrapped in clouds. Still, it was a pretty captivating trip in the gloom.

The part of Mount Taranaki that was visible to us

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Senash Thenuja
Senash Thenuja

Written by Senash Thenuja

I write about Tech and AI. Occasionally, there'll be some off-topic content, too. https://senathenu.github.io/links/

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