Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

Richly blessed with world-beating nature trails, my first dose of outdoorsy soft adventure was on New Plymouth’s universally feted Coastal Walkway, the envy of many a New Zealand town. It was the perfect balmy autumn’s evening, and the shoreline trail was a hot ticket, with hundreds of folk lustily embracing a twilight stroll, as the slanting light of day’s end gilds the shoreline.The award-winning path which skims the Tasman Sea for 13km, not only offers celestial coastal vistas and world-class surf breaks, but is crowned with some compellingly large works of art. Keep walking north of the city to encounter the dramatic wave-like Te Rewa Rewa Bridge (freshly repainted), while Len Lye’s iconic breeze-bending kinetic sculpture, the Wind Wand, remains a much-adored city landmark.A botanical oasis at any time of year is the time-honoured sanctuary of Pukekura Park. Previously, I’ve savoured the city’s annual illuminated extravaganza, the TSB Festival of Lights, which transforms the park into a spangled wonderlan