New Zealand's only glockenspiel

Day 6 and a highlight of our New Zealand road trip was from New Plymouth to Stratford to see a mechanical clock perform "Romeo and Juliet" in a Shakespeare-themed New Zealand town. I won't mention what happened yesterday as we got diverted by some road works and were forced into a 3 hour detour to end up where we started. But today, after quite night in our beautiful motel in New Plymouth, we made our way for a hike in Egmont National Park. The Taranaki Maunga (Mt Egmont) is a dormant stratovolcano and legal person in the Taranaki region on the west coast. At 2,518 metres, it is the second highest mountain in the North Island, after Mount Ruapehu. Only 84 people have died on the mountain since records began in 1891, many having been caught by a sudden change in the weather. In terms of fatalities this mountain is the second most dangerous mountain in New Zealand, but we managed to survive our hike (through some sensational wet forest) to make our way to Stratford in time to see the 1pm performance in the prominent Shakespearean attraction in Stratford, the Glockenspiel Clock Tower, an Elizabethan-style construction built in the 1990s. Since 1999, the clock tower has been entertaining passersby with a short Shakespearean performance four times a day. The performance was only interrupted by the constant stream of timber trucks and milk carriers. The town has 67 streets named after characters from 27 of the writer's plays, including Juliet Street, Montague Grove, Capulet Place, and Hamlet Street.

New Plymouth is a lovely town - not really on the tourist list but it's closeness to Mount Egmont and the sensational country side it's worth a visit. Tomorrow we head east for Napier.