Travel guide Lonely Planet named Taranaki as one of the best regions in the world to visit for 2017.  It’s got the show-stopping Len Lye Centre, legendary surf beaches and an imposing, snow capped mountain.

But landscape architect Richard Bain would argue one of the biggest tourist attractions is New Plymouth’s coastal walkway. Now nearly 20 years old, it’s used by tens of thousands of locals and visitors a year.  Nestled into the shoreline it stretches 11 km from Port Taranaki in the west, to Bell Block beach in the east, with plans to extend it further to Waitara.

“The thing I’m proudest of is that people really do love it and use it,” says Richard Bain, who lives in New Plymouth. “If you go down there on any day of the week it will be full of people.”

Read more