After leaving the Tongariro National Park there were two options: Heading down to Ohakune and investigate the opportunities doing a journey on the Whanganui river or driving to the Taranaki area to climb the famous extinct volcano, which is NZ’s most climbed mountain. When we figured we likely will go kayaking at the Abel Tasman National Park in the South Island and thus wouldn’t need to do it here, our first stop was Taumarunui, a dull township you probably won’t find in any travel guide. The reason for going there was filling up the petrol and starting our trip on State Highway 43, also known as “Forgotten World Highway” as it features tiny villages which look they didn’t develop in the past 50 years, old mines, old graves, an old tunnel and so forth from NZ’s pioneer times in the late 19th century. To be honest, we rushed through it and might have missed the really nice things to see – but I’ll tell you about three things which the official tourist brochure may not promote.
- Despite being called a “state highway”, this road has difficult sections to it and is not fully paved; we travelled it in summer, I would imagine it will get tricky in autumn or winter when there may be a lot of mud around. Also there are difficult narrow bends, and unless you want to enjoy the rainforest and hilly landscape (plus the pioneer sights), choose another route. I’m not too sure but reckon the road gets closed in severe weather conditions.
- I could write the same stuff many other travel guides and websites do about Whangamomona, a small settlement within these men-empty lands, but won’t do it. My advice is: Try the “Whanga Burger” at the hotel, which can compete with Fergburger’s “Big Al” in Queenstown (there will be a big post on Queenstown later) – yes, I’m serious, and it’s cheaper! On the other hand don’t get the passport stamp, it’s just wasted money.
- If you wanna see some real “backwood slasher houses” as featured in movies of the slasher genre, this is the place to be. We’ve left SH43 to follow a sign to a “ghost town”…which we weren’t able to find, but after 30 minutes we ended up on some private land where we suspected a masked killer will come out any minute from the house or shed. The scenary was quite scary, and as we were on private land, we also didn’t take photos. It’s hard to image people living there, as the next bigger towns are more than 2 ½ hours away in both directions, plus there is no petrol station or supermarket on the whole SH43. A hermit’s paradise, that’s for sure.
After several hours en route westwards, the landscape opened and we eventually arrived in Stratford, which wins my award for NZ’s most boring town ever. Apart from using it as base to climb Mt Taranaki, there’s literally nothing to do there. When asking the friendly staff at the iSite what we could fill the day with as the weather on the volcano was too bad to climb it the day after our arrival, they suggested us to go to a museum which is not even in town and the local public pools… Our experience was further shattered by the only hostel: A converted asylum or something similar with a Soviet barracks style lounge, fucked-up toilets/showers and an overall displeasing atmosphere; the only other guests were two East Europeans (?), an elderly German lady and an elderly British guy as well as a Turkish backpacker a day later. On the plus side, the owner was really friendly and tried to help where he can, you won’t run into more Germans or French here and it’s really cheap (you only get what you pay for, eh?).
After one day of slacking around, the following day hailed us with a beautiful view on Mt Taranaki, which we started to ascend from approx. 7:30 am. Without going too much in detail here, it was tougher than I expected; even in summer the peak is snow- and ice-covered, and we were encountering thick mist as well as fought our way through a gravel-ice mix which almost made us turn around. After four hours, we reached the peak after passing a snow field – amazing if you were just running around in t-shirt and shorts a few hours before. If you plan to climb it too, go prepared and take time, and absolutely get advice from the iSite before in regards to the weather; more than 60 people died over the past years going up there (according to the Lonely Planet for NZ, print issue 2013)! Even though we couldn’t enjoy the view due to clouds, it was a good experience and I’ll definitely endeavour more mountaineering in the future. After leaving the area we stayed in a really nice place called the Wavehaven, run by a surf teacher and shop owner located in Oakura. However I won’t cover our two days there here as I wasn’t really doing anything while my mates took a surfing lesson. Further down the schedule was NZ’s capital, and the next post will tell you about my impression of Wellington.
