We left Stratford early this morning yesterday after visting ther local Woollworths store to pick up some sandwiches for lunch as we knew that there wouldn’t be any place to buy food along the way.
A quick look in the rearview mirror showed that Mt Taranaki was free of cloud so we sought a viewpoint and captured a decent image of the mountain.
Our route today, took us along Highway 43 – the “Forgotten World Highway”, north to Tauramanui and then on to the large town of Te Kuiti.
Today was, so far, the highlight of our road trip. The weather was a balmy 26C and the scenery was stunning. We had some fantastic views and stopped many times to take photos – enough for me and also not enough to try Jill’s patience with too many frequent stops.
The road is called the Forgotten World Highway (State Highway 43) because it passes through a very remote region with abandoned settlements and little modern development. It is marketed as feeling like travelling through a “forgotten” part of the country.
The early part of the route travels through small to meduium farm allotments with pictureque views across the valleys.
Along the way is the ghost town of Whangamomona. There are a few houses and pub that opens occasionally. The first European settlers arrived in 1895. The growth of the town was seriously affected by the deaths of 51 men (including some from nearby smaller nearby settlements in the First World War and a major flood in 1924. The town recovered with the arrival of the railway line in 1933 and electrification in 1959, but its population declined in subsequent decades. The school closed in 1979, followed nine years later by the post office.
A truibute to those lost in WW1 is a memorial by the roadside in what may have been a settlement, but is now in the middle of nowhere.
Rail carts—essentially re-engineered golf carts, can be hired to run on the decommissioned railway line that runs parallel to the Forgotten World Highway, offering guided self-drive tours through tunnels, bridges, and remote scenery near Whangamomona.
The route onwards to Taumarunui (over the mountains) follows old Māori trading tracks and early colonial farm roads through bush, gorges and ridgelines that have seen depopulation and farm abandonment since the early–mid 20th century.
Up until now, the road was much better than I had expected. I had seen photos and videos of narrow unmade sections that presented a challeng to drivers. These have disappeared but the road through the mountains has many narrow sections where one=way signs show which vehicles should give preference to oncoming traffic.
In the midst of these narrow sections of road is the Moki Tunnel. It was built in 1936 by steam driven jack hammers and horse drawn wagons. It measures about 180 meters long and pierces solid rock at Moki Saddle, roughly halfway along the 155 km route from Taumarunui to Stratford. Its floor was lowered in 1989 to reach 7 meters in height to accommodate larger vehicles like stock trucks, while still retaining a timber gabled roof and rippled, dirt-like walls adorned with fossilized giant crabs. Drivers must yield to oncoming traffic due to its narrow, one-lane design No lights or lining make it something of a spooky” passage. There were five tunnels planned along this road but this is the only one that was ever built.
Before opening up into farmland again, the road follows the Tangarakau Gorge through verdant forest. It’s a remote area with no fuel or mobile phone coverage We saw a few large RVs on the road and it would have been challenging for them.
Unfortunately, the surveyor of the road died of peritonitis in the middle of the bush. His grave is near a beautiful little stream and waterfall a hunded metres, or so, off the road.
We arrived in Te Kuiti in time to check out the availability of food and fuel for tomorrow because it is a public holiday for Waitangi Day. I’m sure that I will have more to say about that in later posts. We found a nice restaurant in the old railway station for dinner.
This town. Te Kuiti is famous for the annual New Zealand National Shearing Championships and Great NZ Muster (held just after Easter). It bills itself as the shearing capital of the world.
My dear friend Sheryl would have argued, not Mt Taranaki but Mt Egmont. Always good for an argument on that one. It must be wonderful to see all the green.