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| On the road to Jerusalem |
A drive up the Whanganui River Road
to Jerusalem had been on the bucket list for a while and, on a sunny day in
early autumn, we left Tangaroa parked
in Whanganui and set off along the narrow, windy but now completely sealed
road. The 79 kilometres of road were
built over a 30 year period, completed in 1934.
Prior to this all transport was by river. The Wanganui sunshine was displaced as we
left SH 4 and drove over the Gentle Annie past Pungarehu and Parakino. In its place mist hung over the river and
drifted across the hillsides, giving the place a timeless, mysterious
feel. The poet James K. Baxter described
the Whanganui as 'the brown river, te taniwha' and as we drove past the small
settlements with their marae it was easy to share his sense of the
spiritual.
Māori
have long lived beside the river. We
remembered the Māori story about Mt Taranaki fleeing from the central plateau
after being defeated by Mt Tongariro.
The tale tells how he fled this way, and the deep furrow he gauged out
on his journey formed the Whanganui River.
However, geologists have shown that the whole region was once a seabed,
and there are layers of fossilised oyster shells between Parakino and Atene.
Atene,
otherwise Athens, was named by the missionary Richard Taylor who had a great
influence on local Māori and strived to develop peace between warring tribes
and between Māori and Pakehā. The
meeting house here was built in 1886.
The 6-8 hour Atene Skyline walk starts here and there is a shorter walk to
a viewpoint, which we thought we might attempt on the return trip. At this point on our journey the sun broke
through and we began to see what was described, by early steamer boat-trip
advertising, as the 'scenic masterpiece', the 'Rhine of Māoriland'. As we navigated bend after bend in the road,
the river below reflected the bush-clad slopes on either bank.
The
next settlement we passed was Koriniti (Corinth) where there is a marae with
two traditional wharenui, frequently used for cultural tours and overnight
stays. There is a small museum here and
also at the Kawana Flour Mill a little further up the road. This was built by local Māori with help from
Governor Grey in 1854 and was already a 'historic' visitor attraction in the early
twentieth century, when steamers plied the river. We were keen to spend time at Jerusalem
though so didn't linger but continued on our journey, through Ranana (London)
which is one of the larger settlements on the river. It boasts a century-old church and a
marae.
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| Jerusalem seen from the river road |
Finally
we rounded a corner and there ahead of us was Jerusalem (Hiruharama)—it's
church spire reflected in the river below.
We drove into the village and parked beside the convent, founded by
Mother Aubert in 1890 and still functioning today. The sun shone from a cloudless sky and the
church and convent buildings were pristine in their peaceful garden
grounds. As we wandered around there was
not a soul to be seen, just a serene atmosphere.
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| Interior of the church |
Inside
the church there was a photograph of Mother Aubert, who was well-loved for her
work with both Māori and Pakehā in Jerusalem.
A talented and fearless woman, she wrote books in Māori, English and
French, and cared for the sick using a combination of traditional Māori
medicine and Pakehā science. Mother
Aubert founded the Catholic Mission in 1885 and the church was built in
1892. Jerusalem became an important
stop-over on the river in the early 1900s when A. Hatrick and Co Ltd, steamer
proprietary —as they styled themselves—ran a service from Taumarunui to
Wanganui, with railway connections at each end.
They boasted that the accommodation at Pipiriki House could accommodate
300 guests and sported the latest amenities: electric lights and hot and cold
baths.
By
the time that James K. Baxter set up his famous commune in the late 1960s,
Jerusalem was again a sleepy backwater.
The commune was a short-lived endeavour, which ended after Baxter's
death in 1972. He received a full Māori
tangi (funeral) and was buried on Māori land, in front of the house where he
had lived. An inscribed boulder marks
the grave.
We
ate our lunch overlooking the river and decided not to retrace our steps down
the river road but to continue on to Pipiriki and make a circuit back to
Wanganui via Raetihi. The journey from
Wanganui to Pipiriki takes around one and a half hours without stops, while the
whole loop takes around four hours.
Pipiriki is where the adventurous can take jet-boats or kayaks into the
upper reaches of the river and check out the Bridge to Nowhere. There are various companies, both here and in
Wanganui, that provide river trips of different kinds—including the paddle
steamer Waimarie, for those who would
like to experience the river much as the early tourists did a century ago.
As
we drove between Pipiriki and Raetihi we emerged from the bush into farmland,
and were confronted with a lovely view of the snowy peaks of Mount Ruapehu and
Mount Ngauruhoe. Raetihi was founded in
the days when it was reached by river and then over the hills from Pipiriki—the
road first came through from Wanganui in 1917.
It still has several pioneer-era wooden buildings. The road back to Wanganui is known as the Parapara
Scenic Highway and one viewpoint worth a stop is at Raukawa Falls, where there
is a 15-metre-high waterfall. Visiting
Jerusalem was the highlight of our drive up the River Road but we also got a taste of the history and
the mystery of this special part of the country.
We
continued south, turning at Sanson for the little town of Feilding where we
freedom camped at a reserve on Colyton Road.
Between Feilding and Mangaweka are a series of routes known as 'the
country road'. We turned two of them
into a loop and spent a long day on a road trip, discovering Manawatu's secret
places. This area could not have been
more different from the Whanganui River Road.
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| Peep-O-Day |
From
Feilding we followed the Peep-o-Day Route through Cheltenham to Kimbolton,
which has a cafe in a historic building and two rhododendron gardens, Cross
Hills and Heritage Park. Between the two gardens was a lookout spot with wide views
of the countryside across to the Ruahine Range.
We were glad we pulled over here as we never found the Peep-o-Day
viewing point, which was supposedly further along the road. Surveyors set up camp in the virgin bush here
as they charted a course to Rangiwahia, back in the 1880s. Peep-o-Day Point was where they saw the sun rise
above the Ruahines. We were too late in
the day to watch the sunrise, but did get clear views in the other direction
across to Mt Ruapehu and Mt Ngaurahoe.
Nothing remained of the pioneering settlement of
Peep-o-Day, except a memorial at a road junction, and the same was true of
Pemberton a few kilometres further along.
Pemberton was the original settlement in the area, peopled by pioneers
who were to develop the 'waste lands' throughout the country. In 1886, six Pemberton brothers arrived and
began to clear the bush. Within seven
years Pemberton was the biggest settlement in the area with a school, hotel,
post office, general store, butcher, blacksmith and even a cricket team. A few years later its decline began, as
neighbouring Rangiwahia began to grow.
Now it is a ghost town. We turned
at Pemberton corner and drove up to Ōhingaiti on SH 1, then on to Mangaweka.
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| Mural at Mangaweka |
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| Karl Sim alias Goldie |
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| The DC3 |
Mangaweka's main street was by-passed by SH 1 in the
1980s, preserving the iconic historical buildings, which are now starting to
flourish as an artistic precinct. One
building honours one of Mangaweka's most (in)famous inhabitants, Karl Sim—alias
Carl Feodor Goldie, the art forger. Sim
was a talented artist who copied the works of Goldie, McCahon and other notable
New Zealand artists. After being
prosecuted in the 1980s, Sim changed his name to Carl Feodor Goldie so he could
legally sign his pictures as original, genuine C. F. Goldie art works. He wrote about his exploits in a book, titled
Good As Goldie. We wandered around the street admiring the
murals and the buildings—some still neglected, others renovated—then crossed
the road to the cafe beneath the famous Mangaweka landmark, a DC3 plane. The plane used to be part of the cafe but now
displays the history of DC3s in New Zealand.
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| The Rangitikei River |
Information about places mentioned in this post - correct at the time of writing
Walks
- ·
Totara Reserve Regional
Park
www.horizons.govt.nz/managing-natural-resources/parks-projects/totara-reserve-regional-park
Pettifer and
Gilchrist Loop Tracks: 1-2 hr, easy
Access: 92, Churchill Rd,
Pohangina
Places to visit
- · Jerusalem
5137, Whanganui River Rd, Whanganui
www.visitwhanganui.nz/jerusalem-whanganui
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