The long and winding, scenic, twisty, flat, amazing road..

25/08/12 Saturday afternoon.
The long and winding, scenic, twisty, flat, amazing road....

We drove out of Napier, through the Westshore area, sat on its spit of land between a tranquil wetlands bay and the vastness of the South Pacific Ocean. Past Napier Airport, before pulling into a petrol station to fill up the luxobarge Kirishima, and stock up on nibbles for the drive.

For the rest of the day I was to be exposed to a landscape that varied from lush forest, to vast open spaces, to mountains, nay Volcanoes commanding their position over bleak open scrub. I’m not sure I was prepared for what lay ahead.

At least we were prepared with fuel and snacks as we rejoined Highway 5 that runs from Napier to Taupo.

As we passed from Ocean side beaches to rolling hills we started the climb into the Esk Forest. Lush green hillsides closed in around the road as it wound around the curves of the valley carved by the river below. Sometimes the road took a more direct route, allowing the river to dart back and forwards underneath us as we crossed bridge after bridge over the gurgling clear water. The road was wide and smooth. It swept along the valley side still climbing until we came out of the forest, and began our descent towards the Awahonui Forest, where we could start to make out the grey looming shapes of mountains in the distance.

It wasn’t to long before we started to climb again up and up, slowly sailing up to the plateau across the Ahimanawa Range. Once driving upon the plateau we were surrounded by a flat open area of gorse and scrub. With the looming shape of a large volcanic cone, which I’ve yet to find the name of, standing proud over the plateau.

Then cresting the top of the caldera in which Lake Taupo sits, I had a sharp intake of breath. I was driving into the remains of a supervolcanic eruption that had left New Zealand with a majestic 238 square mile lake, sat in hundreds of square meters of land that collapsed after the eruption. I’m told the volcano is considered ‘dormant’ rather than extinct. That’s nice to know as you drive on towards it.

As Taupo was an unplanned detour, we decided to skip the town and take a tour around the lake. We will come back up to see Taupo and Turangi, and to properly explore the town and the lake, but that will be for another road trip.

I got Marc to pull over by the lakeside when we were a couple of kilometers outside of the town. The lake shimmered silver under the clouds, a barely perceivable breeze touched the surface of the water, just enough to ripple the reflection of the hills that lay across the lake. Beams of light broke through the clouds on the other side, giving the whole lake a beauty and calm I was enthralled by. After taking a few photos, I picked up a couple of white stones and flicked them onto the lake where they floated on the surface in exactly the same way that stones don’t. Pumice stone, brilliant! The lakeside was littered with pumice from the eruptions of the volcano, from small pebbles to fist size stones, and I took great delight in skimming some of the stones over the water, to watch them just sit there on the surface, gently bobbing away on the ripples.

We pressed on past the lake and along Highway 1, climbing again, out of the caldera and up onto the start of the Desert Highway.

As we followed the road out of the bush I got my first glimpses of Mt Tongariro.

Mt Tongariro became more stunning as the trees gave way to a vast open space of scrubland. The mountain soaring from the desert into the clouds, its snow-covered sides blending with the white of the clouds giving the impression that the mountains sides didn’t stop.

I was blown away with the view before me, "Wow!! Mountains!!!!" as I said to Marc over and over again in a slightly erratic Christopher Walken voice.. "Wow!! Wowee!!"

As we’d driven from Napier and climbed higher and higher, the temperature had dropped, from a blissful 17 or so degrees in Napier, to around 8 degrees on the Desert Highway. Yes, Desert Highway did mean I had the Eagles lyrics popping into my head every time it was mentioned.

We stopped by the side of the road so I could get some pictures, and you could feel the fresh chill in the air, a light wind blew across the road and added to the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere, it was beautiful in its rugged bleakness.

(Marc and the Kirishima... Kiri)

Further on we passed by the equally awe inspiring Mt Ruapehu, more snow capped wonder that lay to our right as we drove, and with scrub land stretching out to our left until more hills in the distance, the emptiness of the landscape was stunning.

Here and there we would see a small encampment off in the scrub, the area is used by the Army for training, and tough training at that, I can imagine. If New Zealand ever wants to invade the Highlands of Scotland, they’ll have been well acclimatized.

Getting peckish, we stopped in a small town called Waiouru. Apart from the military base there, and a tank museum, the town consisted of a few buildings, a petrol station and a couple of diners.

The first diners kitchen was closed, so faced with a selection of pies in a (vaguely) hot cabinet, that looked like they’d been there all week, we crossed the road to somewhere with a little more life.

As it turned out, most of the customers we’d seen through the window were the staff sat chatting and arguing in Chinese. They were very welcoming though, and we settled down to a couple of portions of fried chicken and chips. Normally, I wouldn’t have been to excited by the look of the pot of chicken wings, and anemic chips that were sat in front of me; but as I was surprisingly hungrier than I’d previous thought, the dodgy looking fare went down quickly and well. The mug of tea I had with the food was terrific, it tasted just like a truck stop diners tea should, stewed and strong, yum!

Hunger forgotten, a quick dart into the loo (nothing to do with the food) and we were on our way again.

Talking of loo’s, sorry, but I have noticed that public loo’s over here are a hell of a lot cleaner than any I’ve had the misfortune to use back home. In the middle of nowhere they were clean, and in generally good condition. Even in city centre’s they seem to be clean, have loo roll, and working hand driers. Now I know there must be some particularly rank ones around, but so far… Well done NZ toilet folks!

Back to the road. Yes, back to the long road out of the desert, the scenery designer gradually started adding trees, then some greenery, then more trees, and before we knew it we were hustling along amongst rolling hills and farmland again.

There were still the silhouettes of mountains off to the side in the distance, but we were on our way down onto the plains around Fielding and Palmerston North.

We stopped just off the highway to get a clear view of Gravity Canyon, a canyon formed where the underlying ground had been eroded and combined with a mass of sink holes, the ground all along the canyon just collapsed, plummeting by a few hundred feet. At least that’s about as much as I could find out about it. When google-ing Gravity Canyon, the first four or so pages were just about the various Bungee and Flying Fox business that have set up along the length of the Canyon. Next to nothing about the Canyon itself.

Fine, I'll do it myself. Gravity Canyon was made by giant moles being ridden by pixies who were drunk on a potion made from magic mushrooms and ground up powdered unicorns.

I may add that to Wikipedia, for all the use their entry is.

Regardless, it’s pretty cool, and although not one of the deepest Canyons, when you’re taking a picture then realize you’re only a meter or so from the edge with no fence; and you’re still not great with heights it seems like a hell of a long way down.

I backed away from the edge, keeping an eye on it in case it suddenly moved towards me, or visa versa. Yes, my Acrophobia does like to mess with my head.

The rest of the drive was mostly across wide-open farmland with long straights. We passed through farming towns, past a large billboard proclaiming ‘Peach Teats – Calves love em’ with a picture of a smiling cow…. Yep, farming country for sure! Through the town of Bulls, where I’m told they are a major town for Bull breading etc, although at this point I think Marc was amusing himself by making up potted histories for the towns we passed.

If the town of Bulls, did get it’s name from breeding Bulls, and I admit it sounds believable. Then I like the logical way of naming things the settlers had, probably kept meetings short and more time for the pub.

The sun was setting across the farmland as we motored on, past Feilding and Levin, the long roads and open scenery lending itself to the Joshua Tree being blasted out, the first time I’ve listened to the whole album in years. With iPods and their ilk it’s too easy to keep flipping tracks, for once it was good to hear an album in order, in it’s entirety, although our singing along was why the music was cranked up.... Must do that again, NZ has the roads for it. Heck, on the way up to Napier I put some country on, it just seemed to fit. YeeHah!

Night had already settled in for the…… umm, night. We polished off the final leg, back past Paraparaumu Beach, the seafood restaurant from my first day in the Wellington area, and place names that I was starting to recognize, in good time.

Back at base, and full of satisfaction from the first proper road trip.

I’ll make a nuisance of myself in Wellington again this week, while planning for where to go next. Or maybe we'll just leave it to chance again, it worked out well this time.