Day 8 – North Island – Saturday 13th March 2010

 

This was very much a Central New Zealand day. We left Taupo at 9:00am and drove down the side of the lake to Turangi where Val got some Strepsil’s for her sore throat (it’s a lot better now). We continued down Highway 1 and drove down past the Kaimanawa Forest which covers an extensive area. We were looking at the major mountains in the Tongariro National Park. These are stunning mountains. The highest is Mount Ruapehu which is 2,797metres high. The sky was clear blue and the sun was shining on the snow on the mountains. We then continued south on Highway 1 and passed through the Rangipo Desert on the now appropriately named Desert Road.

We reached Waiouru, which is the home of the Army Museum. We had a look around and then left Highway 1 and turned West on Highway 49 towards Ohakune. An hour after leaving Waiouru we reached a spot where the railway crosses a gorge on a steel bridge. Had to take a picture. We passed through an interestingly named little community that goes by the name of National Park. This grandiose sounding place is just a small settlement where highway 47 branches off from Highway 4. Not long after that we reached the Raurimu Spiral. This is an ingenious solution to the problem of getting a train to ascend 220meters up the side of a hill. The work was completed in 1907. There is a lookout that you can climb to view this engineering masterpiece but the track is through a heavily wooded hillside and you can’t see a thing. To give some purpose to the lookout some kind soul has knocked together some metalwork to illustrate what we ought to be looking at. For us to have something else to remember we stopped over for a coffee and cake.

We continued north on highway 4 to a small village called Owhango. We marked this occasion by stopping for a picnic lunch. Very nice too. We then continued onward and upward (well, up the map) to Taumarunui and had a little look around. Then continued to Te Kuiti, the Shearing Capital of the World. A proud boast. Took a photo of the self-proclaiming sign for good measure and moved on. But wait, what is this? Why, it is a statue of a man shearing a sheep. You just have to stop and take a photo of that!

On leaving the town we took a back road and we were rewarded by coming across a man knocking seven bells out of a lump of rock. He was using a monster drill in fact. Turned out he was producing a sculpture! He showed us his plan of the final article. These guys have a terrific imagination. He showed us some more of his work and we came across other pieces when we moved on. Artists are really quite different to normal people. He told us that just down the road we would come to a river crossing where we share the road bridge with a train track. The bridge is a double decker with the road below and the rail above. A bit like the Tinsley Viaduct where the M1 crosses the River Don between Sheffield and Rotherham. But this was a bit smaller. Still good though as it must have been 100 years old.

Very soon after that we reached the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves. Obviously we had to visit and it really was a great place. Had the usual stuff about what happens in Limestone Caves but then it got seriously different as we went down to board a boat that took us into the main chamber. The roof was a mass of little bright lights. It was magnificent. A real fairy grotto. Well, obviously not that real as there are no such things as fairies. There aren’t, are there?

We called it a day after that and motored up to Hamilton where we booked into a Motel for the night. Went out for another great New Zealand meal. I had a massive plateful of ribs and BBQ sauce with brilliant potato wedges. Had a shower afterwards.