crazyscot

Taumaranui to New Plymouth via Taranaki

We left the motel in Taumaranui this morning with mixed feelings. The motel itself was fine, everything in good condition, the kitchen a little dated but functional. OTOH the town is a bit run-down. We saw plenty of evidence of this in the form of closed shops, dilapidated buildings just off the main drag, shop doors displaying anti-truancy posters, streets less clean than elsewhere we've experienced in NZ. As the Lonely Planet guide says, the town "can feel a bit grim".

---

The first part of today's trip was to drive the Forgotten World Highway. This is a road winding its way through old pioneer country, which has no petrol and even fewer supply points than it used to. There are a number of points of interest en route - natural saddle points in the landscape (all of which had mind-boggling views which defied photographic capture), memorials to notable pioneers, historical sites, and the single-lane (single-track in UK parlance) Moki Tunnel. For 12km, about mid-way along, the road is even unsealed as it follows the (breathtaking, awe-inspiring, insert arbitrary further superlatives here) Tangarakau Gorge, underlining that you're somewhere beyond the middle of nowhere out here. After the gorge comes the township of Whangamomona, down from 300 residents in frontier times to about 30 now. The hotel is for sale - a snip at NZ$800k, and we've seen quite a few such service businesses on the market on our travels - but it makes one wonder how much economic activity is possible in such places these days.

C: No, it's no use, I've crashed. Unable to process. It can't look like this.
R: Like adults on the Discworld being unable to see Death, you mean?

The highway ends in Stratford, where we stopped for lunch amidst many streets named after Shakespearean characters. We then took one of the roads which go part-way up Taranaki - more scary hairpintastic mountain road, this time surrounded by thick forest. There's a ski field in the winter, but in the summer the end of the road is just a large gravelled space which I suppose is parking. We were above the cloud base, but Taranaki remained bashful so we didn't stick around.

Maori legend says that Taranaki was one of a tribe of volcanoes living on the North Island, vying for the attention of the pretty Pihanga. After being caught by Tongariro - some say they brawled - he was forced to flee, gouging out a great scar in the earth which we now call the Whanganui River. Ever since then he has sat in isolation, his face regularly veiled by clouds of tears for Pihanga, and Tongariro occasionally erupting as if to warn him not to come back. Maori don't like to live on the direct line between the two for fear that his return to the tribe will happen one day, and that it'll be cataclysmic.

Pressing on to New Plymouth, there's little else to report. Both it and Stratford seemed to be prosperous, judging by how the towns seemed in pretty good nick when compared against Taumaranui. New Plymouth is a deep-water port and oil exploration base of some 40000 residents; after the tastiest curry I think I've ever had (The Flame on Devon Street East) we went for a drive, catching the sun setting over the Tasman.