Taranaki: Under the mountain

Head up the famous Mt Taranaki for a spot of snowball throwing. Photo / Thinkstock

Pack up the kids and head to the 'Naki, urges Rob Cox, but, he warns, you may have to eat humble pie when you see its glories.

For the past 10 years I have had to listen to my colleague Dylan Cleaver bang on about Taranaki. And on. And on. To be honest, it became quite tiresome and I sometimes wondered if it would be better for the Son-of-the-'Naki to return to his heartland. I might even have suggested this to him.

But before I could completely dismiss his claims about the wonders of his homeland, it seemed reasonable to check out the place.

This would be a family voyage and I was dreading the five-hour drive from Auckland. However, there were no screams or fights from the backseats this time thanks to our Ford Territory having a fold-down TV for the three rascals in the back, fully equipped with wireless headsets. Talk about life-changing technology. But no technology could prevent our three kids from many panicked toilet stops, so our lunchtime arrival into New Plymouth ended up being around 6pm.

Unsure of our bearings and in need of advice, we went straight to Puke Ariki, the combined museum, gallery and information centre. It's beautifully designed and a wonderful addition to the city, with plenty to do and see and great activities for the kids. We then found a cosy little pub called Frederic's and had a superb dinner. Good beer, great food and fantastic friendly staff.

It was getting on, we were stuffed, and the kids were falling asleep, so we drove on south to the Ahu Ahu Beach Villas at Oakura. The following morning we woke up in paradise. Our villa was perfect, the kids in a loft, us downstairs, and outside was a massive grass lawn for the rascals to let off steam.

We were quite high up on a cliff that looked out over nothing but ocean. I have a great photo of my boys doing the Karate Kid "crane" technique that morning: they had just seen the movie and thought the location and timing was ideal.

David, the owner, built the coastal villas out of recycled timbers from an old hospital and the Nelson wharves. His biggest triumph was the massive fire pit, and when he told the kids they could sit under the stars roasting marshmallows all night, our plans for that evening were pretty much sealed.

Kate Cox and friends toast marshmallows in the fire pit at Ahu Ahu Villas. Photo / Rob Cox

A great attraction to Taranaki is the annual garden festival and we had planned to get as many gardens in as possible.

The first was close to town at La Rosaleda, a stunning Edwardian style rose garden, and it was beautiful. The next garden was Tupare, a public garden, sculpted into an extremely steep hillside overlooking the Waiwhakaiho River. On the grounds also sits an original Chapman-Taylor home, for which construction started in 1930 and continued for 12 years.

Russell Matthews, the original owner, sounded like an interesting man. The vision for the garden was all his, and apparently he let his daughters live upstairs in the lovely spacious top floor of the house while the sons had to live in the basement, and if the boys wanted to borrow his car, they had to go and spend a day working in the garden first. Tough love.

For lunch we headed to VolcaNo View cafe to recharge. With its outdoor pedal carts and a flying fox, this cafe was a huge hit with our kids.

Next on our garden list was Te Kainga Marire, situated near an old pa. This garden even made the kids stop in their tracks.

Valda, the owner, with her husband, have worked on the garden since the 70s. It is only one of four gardens in the country with the garden of International Significance accolade and was hand-picked by the BBC's Around the World in 80 Gardens series. I would do that drive again just to have a cup of tea at Valda's.

A reward to the kids for a huge day of garden hopping was a round of indoor glow-in-the-dark miniputt. We cringed at the thought of it but it was good fun and the neon colours everywhere improved my golf.

Then we had the best dinner ever. We went back to Ahu Ahu and rolled out the barbecue on the lawn, had sausages wrapped in bread with a beer while the kids ran around like wildlings. As the sun began to set, we hunkered down in the huge fire pit, stared up at the stars and toasted marshmallows for the rest of the evening. The kids were in heaven.

Day two and we were off to Inglewood to see one of New Zealand's iconic brands, Fun Ho! Toy Museum.

These are the toys I grew up playing with in the sandpit. The classic aluminium moulded tractor with most of its paint worn off could have been previously owned by your granddad. At Fun Ho Museum, as my boys found out, they don't just display the toys, they still make them. Head toymaker Richard had my boys in the workshop, packing and sifting down fine dirt into moulds and took them through the entire process (he did the pouring of molten aluminium thank goodness) the result being two beautifully crafted little racing cars produced by our longest-lasting toy manufacturer.

Flynn and Johnny Cox have a snowball fight on Mt Taranaki. Photo / Rob Cox

From Inglewood we headed to Hawera to see Tawhiti Museum.

You have got to see this place. What was once an old cheese factory has (over several years) been transformed into what I can only describe as a historic New Zealand museum crossed with Rainbow's End.

There are life-sized exhibits and displays in one room, and tiny detailed scaled models in the next that stretch around an entire hall, showing a famous battle or land crossing with thousands of miniature figures all handmade by Nigel, the owner, and his team. The detail is incredible. A log-flume type ride takes you down through caves and into a dark forest smack into a battle between Maori and the colonials. It was awesome. Nigel did mention his mates from Weta Workshop gave him a hand with it.

As we headed back through Stratford, the famous Mt Taranaki was clear of cloud and heaped in snow, so we swung a left and 20 extremely safe 4WD minutes later we were up in the mountain's carpark throwing snowballs at each other, wearing jandals and T-shirts. Nuts.

Another 40 minutes later and we were back on the coast, kicking back in a spa pool while the kids whizzed down slides at New Plymouth's aquatic centre.

This town has everything.

Oak Valley Manor is a beautiful place to stay, only a few minutes out of town. It's also a great place for a Guy Fawkes evening. Hosts Paul and Pat make it an annual event, and my kids loved stuffing hay into the old jeans and jumpers with the other children until a little kid smiled and said, "now we burn them".

Having survived a Guy Fawkes bonfire, the next morning we walked around the manor's beautiful gardens, complete with a chapel that was so pretty our kids insisted that we renew our wedding vows right there and then.

We obeyed orders, and it was a beautiful ceremony, again.

The chapel at Oak Valley Manor. Photo / Rob Cox

A special little spot to visit with children is the Pouakai Zoo, a much-loved family-run petting zoo where the kids can cuddle goats and donkeys, pigs, llamas, blue-tongue lizards - they even have lions (you can't cuddle them though).

We had the best time discovering the 'Naki and as we weren't looking forward to the trip home, we squeezed in a few more of the town's must-do's: a stroll along the impressive 11km coastal walkway, brunch at the popular Bach on Breakwater (absolutely incredible food) and a stroll through Pukekura Park.

That park is the jewel of the city, the best playgrounds, the best gardens and the best cricket ground a city could wish for and growing up here really would be the ideal childhood for any kid.

Upon arrival in Auckland, and for the first time in 10 years, I sucked it in, walked across to the sports desk and apologised to Dylan Cleaver for ever having doubted him about his homeland. Ouch.

CHECKLIST

Getting there: Air New Zealand has daily flights to New Plymouth or it's a five-hour drive from Auckland.

Further information: See visit.taranaki.info.