Egmont National Park is located south of New Plymouth, close to the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The park covers Mount Taranaki and its slopes. The park was first created in 1881 as a forest reserve and went on to become New Zealand’s second national park in 1900.
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Amazing place to visit. Definitely recommend the Pouakai circuit, it takes 2-3 days depending on how hard you want to push. It's an intermediate to advanced walk due to there being a few slips, steep bits and Rocks to climb over. Huts require pre booking so plan ahead if you want to get the most of it. When going to the summit of Taranaki, it can be cold even in summer. Bring gloves + something warm just incase. But dont go overboard, try and keep it light because it's a long way up. Even if your fit it still takes the 8-10 hours on the sign. There are many alternative car parks to the one next to the visitor center (which gets full quick with overnight campers in self contained vans), which you can still leave your car overnight. If wanting to stay overnight somewhere close to the mountian, would recommend volcanoview campground, it's very cheap with a great view and quick drive up to the visitor center. It's not the flashiest facilities, but it's cheap and a small family run business. If backpacking I know that there is a hostel in new Plymouth called ducks and drakes that has a van that goes to the visitor center to drop of and pick up people, I've heard good things about them and it is one of the few ways to get out there from new Plymouth...
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This is a beautiful place and the hikes are wonderful. I did the Pouakai circuit in a day and it almost ended badly.
I read reviews online saying they did Pouakai in 6, 7, 8 hours and similar elevation/distance hikes I've done suggested the same. Reality was 9 hours and 45 minutes with maybe 10 minutes of break time. By the end the world changed colours multiple times and I realised I was in the find out stage after messing around. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're tireless and fast, if you're tireless and stupid like me then maybe don't do it in a day. 9 Hours without a snowstorm would be pretty realistic for most fit hikers.
Cannot recommend the hike and park itself enough. Came back the next day and did a few of the little hikes around it, all really cool. Taranaki is still on my to do list, and stunning. Pouakai counter clockwise is 100% the way to go. The forest sections are a lot more manageable going up than down as they're steep, slippery, and rely on handholds. It's also just prettier, I had a snowstorm, but even then it's real shadow of the colossus type stuff.
Unless you're ready to deal with snow (I wasn't, turns out snow sucks) I'd visit here in summer to...
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Absolute must if you are in Taranaki region or New Plymouth area. I think there are 2 entry points to it...North and East side of the Mt. Taranaki. We went to the Eastern entry point which is like 65kms from New Plymouth. Northern entry is the nearer one.
Now regarding the national park. The moment you reach to the park you realize that how mighty it is. Its quite intimidating as you are approaching the mountain. The car park actually is a big plateau in itself. From there are two paths. One path takes you to trail around the mountain and a waterfall. Mind you this path is absolute no if you are with a toddler. We went almost half km on this trail and realise that you wont be easy with our toddler and turned back.
After that we took the another trail which is more of a inclined walking path for a gud part and takes u straight to the mountain. We walked till a point after which the trail becomes more of hike. The walk watching the Mt. Taranaki was quite enthralling and...
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