14 February 2017 - Parua Bay, Northland

We drove out of Petone and the Hutt Valley mid-morning on Waitangi Day, after listening to radio discussions about this our “National Day” and arriving at the same conclusion we had the day before. Waitangi Day has indeed become a “cultural cringe” as our new Prime Minister suggested some weeks ago, and there are few who wish to see it as more than an excuse for a day off work and school.

Wanganui River from the Aramoana viewpoint

Instead of returning toward Wellington and heading north on Highway One, we drove up over “the Haywoods” coming down onto the west coast at Paremata, then continued on north after shopping for fresh bread for lunch and the Wellington newspaper, which we decided is not a whole lot better than the Christchurch Press; perhaps even worse because at least two of the feature articles had been published two days before in the Press. 

Our journey saw us meander slowly up the North Island with plenty of time to return to our home base. The weather did take the shine off some our tikki-touring, but there is not much one can do about that apart from remarking from time to time that we thought we had left the lousy weather down in the South Island.

On a whim we decided to come up the Wanganui River Road, a road untraveled since it has all been sealed. The sixty four kilometre road which follows the river from just north of Upokongaro on State Highway 4 as far as Pipiriki was first opened in 1934 and took thirty years to construct. Since then nature has made sure roadwork teams have been kept busy; more recently after the floods of mid-2016. When we drove south almost three months ago, then travelling on the Parapara Road which was beset with devastation during the same weather events, this lesser road had been spent periods of time totally closed and others open for limited periods. Fortunately for us, now months on, the road was passable, although still pitted and pot holed, narrow, slumped and slipped.

A sleepy section of the river

We stopped at the top of the one real hill along the way, the Aramoana Viewpoint. I have taken photos from this very spot throughout the years, and am never bored with the view. The Wanganui River at this lower reach is more sluggish than further up where there are untold rapids that challenged the riverboats in the first part of last century, and these days thrill and excite the canoeists and jet boat travellers. 

Roadside pigs

There are numerous maraes all along the route, evidence of a strong Maori presence in years gone by, long before Europeans settled upriver themselves. While some of the whare nuis have disintegrated into the landscape, some have been restored to their previous glory and are in use for locals or those who are invited. Naturally we did not fit into either category. There are still Maori families who live along the way, and others who live in the same casual manner, as was evidenced by the number of pigs loose in domestic gardens and in a couple of instances, all over the road.

There are also a couple of Catholic Churches, one at Ranana and the other at Hiruharama / Jerusalem, this latter home of the recently beatified Mother Marie Aubert and later to poet James K Baxter and his hippy cohorts. In fact that community did not close until after Baxter’s death in 1972. There are still nuns and the like wandering about the place or at least there were when we called up to the convent ten years or so ago. The church features a beautifully carved altar in Maori design and kowhaiwhai panels adorn the walls. Once the home of an orphanage where little Maori children were converted to Catholicism, and hopefully nothing else, the convent now hosts retreats. 

A local about to head upriver

Not too far from Jerusalem is Moutoa Island, the scene of a short and fierce battle in 1864 between Wanganui Maori and an invading Hauhau force. The battle helped to establish a close bond between local iwi and European settlors. The battle has been memorialised with a monument in the Moutoa Gardens down in Wanganui itself.

We arrived at Pipiriki by lunchtime and parked up just above the wharf where a local man had just arrived with his son, daughter and grandchild in his dinghy. We learned that he lives upriver and the only access is by boat. The rest of the family were heading back home, wherever that be, after spending part of the summer with him in isolation. We watched as he headed back up river; he was a taciturn type, well suited to his otherwise solitary life.

Today Pipiriki is gateway to the upper Wanganui River and all the adventures that tourists enjoy thereon and thereabouts, but once it was an important staging post for the paddle steamers that plied the river with cargo and passengers. My mother remembers the hotel that stood grandly above the wharf, hosting those like her family who were obliged to pause their journeys here before taking smaller vessels upriver. The hotel burnt down in 1959 and is now only a memory and part of the paddle-steamer history of the river and the entrepreneurial Hatrick family.

Arrival of canoeists at Pipiriki

We watched canoeists straggle in off the river, some wet from having been tossed out in the rapids immediately upriver. The plastic barrels being unloaded reminded us of our own river journey taken about eighteen years ago, and while I remember it fondly, particularly the fact that Chris and I did not capsize our Canadian canoe, I would not like to tempt fate by trying to relive the experience. 

From Pipiriki, we travelled eastward back to Raetihi on a better road, twenty eight kilometres up through high dense native forest, many of the aged trees bedecked with Old Man’s Beard moss.  Pungas and manuka grow down to the edge of the road and where repairs had cleared the edges, Himalayan Honeysuckle is taking over. We continued on the short distance to Ohakune where we camped up Mountain Road at the Mangawhero DOC camp, one of only four parties for the night. The weather had turned as we came away from the River, and by nightfall, rain was falling steadily.

Unfortunately the morning was little better and we ditched our plans to walk The Old Coach Road at Ohakune. This is a fifteen kilometre walkway, now part of the Mountains to the Coast cycleway, this part from Ohakune up through to Horopito, which lies 150 metres higher than Ohakune’s 610 metres ASL. We were keen to do the first section to take in the views of Hapuawhenua Viaducts. The Old Coach Road formed an integral link between the two rail heads between 1906 and 1908 before the Main Trunk Line was completed. Alas it was not the day to see this for ourselves; the clouds were low and the temperatures low and mountain weather can change at the drop of a hat. Next time hopefully!

Makatote Viaduct

And so we came on north sooner than expected, on past National Park, the central mountains and paused for morning tea beside the Makatote Viaduct, which is still very much in use today. This is 79 metres high (the third highest rail bridge in New Zealand) and 262 metres long, built between 1905 and 1908 by a Christchurch crowd, although the steel was actually fabricated on site. This viaduct, the last structure on the line to be completed, has always impressed me, ever since I first passed this way as a small child, but now it looks even more impressive with its new red iron-oxide coat of paint.

We were delighted to find ourselves only the third ever party to overnight at the NZMCA’s brand new park over property at Otorohanga, adjacent to the Waipa River. Right now it seems an absurdly large area, but no doubt as members learn of its existence, it will become as popular as Ardmore or Taupo. After dinner, as the starlings settled down to roost in the boundary trees, we watched the changing skies as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, the horizon lying in the direction of Honikiwi, the rural area I spent the first nine years of my life. I thought it quite fitting that we should be among the first here at this park, when it was this very town that had been “our local” as I spent those formative years.

Further north on our journey, we detoured to Lake Puketirini on the western edge of Huntly for the sole purpose of exercise. We had happened upon this recreational lake a few years ago after driving up from Kawhia through the mining area. This time we were intent on walking its perimeter.

The lake is a relatively new feature of the township, developed from a disused coal-mined pit and ready for use in 2007. The Waikato District Council owns the park and promote its existence for use such as kayaking, water-ski-ing, boating, waka ama and of course walking. 

Huntly's diving school

En route, we came upon a Scotsman with three very boisterous dogs, and fell into conversation with him after the dogs had settled down from their excitement about us. There is a large diving platform in the centre of the lake and we were curious as to its purpose, given that it more like dredging equipment. It turns out that this is the operational centre for the New Zealand  School of Commercial Diving, which according to the local dog-walker, charges about $40,000 for a six week course, and if you graduate from here you have one of the best diving qualifications in the whole world. Further checking did substantiate the fact that the school offers courses internationally and you can graduate with a screed of letters after your name, however the training time and cost must be left as hearsay only.  This same man told us that the water in the lake is very clear and that mining machinery was left in the bottom of the mine which serves the same as shipwrecks for the learner divers. True or false? It’s a good story anyway.

As we passed through Auckland, we did a drive-by of the house we worked on last year before it was sold; the property we had restored the driveway by hand, blood and guts, had the fence repaired and generally restored the tidy little house standing on a large corner section. We were appalled to discover that a tiny little brick residence has been squeezed onto where the driveway was, not only negating all the hard work we did, but surely creating one of the ugliest little unliveable homes in the city. We guessed the new owners were reaping the greatest rentals from this now double producing property, and most likely far in excess of double what we had earned ourselves. In fact we would guess they are earning five times as much! We were shocked, numbed, although glad to have rid ourselves of our troublesome South Auckland investment.

We have been “home” for a couple of days now. Our motorhome is set up on our bush boundaried sea view section “Jumbo” (our white elephant for those not in the know). The weather has been warm and sunny, quite tropical and a far cry from that experienced over the last couple of months. We have yet to catch up with all the family, but have managed to book our air tickets for our next stint in the UK. In the intervening ten weeks there is much to be done, not least the wedding of my niece to attend and a boarding school reunion, the get together of a gaggle of sixty-somethings after a separation of fifty years. We do intend to get away travelling at least once more before we head overseas, even if it is simply to attend that dubious reunion. (I dare to say “dubious” because I am always wary of social gatherings and it will require courage on my part to walk into the room, although I know in my heart of hearts that it will be an absolutely brilliant “homecoming”. The anticipation of reunions is the scary part.) In the meantime I shall languish in the humidity and not complain at all!