The Forgotten Highway

Tangaroa after coming out of the 'Hobbit Hole'

The Forgotten Highway is a road you drive just for the sake of driving it.  It goes from nowhere in particular to somewhere else that is nowhere in particular.  Should you want to get to Stratford or Taumarunui you probably would go some other way to get there.  Officially called SH 43 it is a very minor, windy and partially unsealed road, described as a roller coaster trip.  We started the 150-kilometre drive at Taumarunui, having come past the Chateau Tongariro Hotel, where we stopped for coffee, and Raurimu where we investigated the famous spiral.

            This piece of railway engineering was devised in 1898 to solve the difficulties of putting a track between Raurimu and National Park.  Because there is a drop of 200 metres, engineer Robert Holmes designed a spiral with sweeping curves and tunnels.  We stopped at the viewing area to study a model of the spiral and admire a huge driftwood dinosaur (Raurimu Rex) at the roadside. Then at Taumarunui we turned left and began our journey into the unknown.  A sign warned us there was no fuel to be had along the route.

            The unsealed section of road goes through the Tangarakau Gorge, where even the road map feels the need to caution drivers that the road is narrow and windy.  It didn't help that we were driving the highway on the day after a rainstorm and there were slips and rocks on the road in places.  Malcolm had to take Tangaroa onto the wrong side of the road on a couple of occasions to avoid the muddy slips, and even though we were cautious, we gave a little old lady quite a fright on one corner.  Luckily, being a Sunday there were few other vehicles on the road.  The Moki Tunnel was quite an experience—I wondered if the bus would actually fit inside.  It is only just wide enough for large vehicles and someone has affixed a sign that says 'Hobbit Hole' at the entrance.

At Whangamomona

            Whangamomona is the only settlement on the route and if you blinked you might miss it.  The township declared itself a republic after boundary changes moved it from Taranaki to the Manawatu-Wanganui region.  (Even map makers can't decide where it is!)  Each year the town celebrates Republic Day and elects a president.  Previous presidents have included a goat and a dog.  We looked at the town's few buildings, the pub is the main feature, and wondered how many towns had sheep sitting in the middle of the road.  You can get a Republic of Whangamomona passport from the pub apparently, but it was closed and had a for sale sign.

            From here we continued along the road, encountering more hairpin turns and one way bridges— there were four mountain saddles on the route.  Eventually, when we came to Stratford at the end of the Forgotten Highway, it felt like we had popped out from the wild into civilisation.  Named after the birthplace of William Shakespeare, the town was initially called Stratford-upon-Patea, which seems a sort of multicultural mash-up.  Sixty-seven of the town's streets have Shakespearian names.  Stratford's glockenspiel clock tower, unique in New Zealand, performs scenes from Romeo and Juliet four times a day.

            We parked Tangaroa at Te Ngutu o te Manu Battle site and Historic Reserve near the township of Eltham, which is just south of Stratford.  Te Ngutu is a 20-hectare reserve, mostly bush, but with an area for freedom camping.  Near our parking spot was a cross erected in memory of Major Von Tempsky and the men who fell in battle here.  The quiet reserve was originally a fortified pā that became a battlefield in 1868.  Māori under the leadership of Riwha Tītokowaru were outnumbered six to one, but defeated a colonial force led by Lieutenant-Colonel McDowell and the flamboyant Von Tempsky.  The memorial names the twenty-six Pakehā who died in the battle but no mention is made of any Māori fatalities.  The cross was erected shortly after the event, in times when settlers were still 'at war' with Māori tribes.  A signboard nearby explains some details of the engagement—but a memorial to Tītokowaru and his people might be appropriate now.

Monument at Manu Reserve

            New Zealand's first butter export was from Eltham.  A Chinese businessman named Chew Chong (Chau Tseung) sent the first shipment of butter in 1884 and built the country's first dairy factory three years later.  An information sign has been erected in Eltham recently, recording information about Chew Chong and his contribution to the area.  The town's buildings are a mix of Victorian and Edwardian—we were interested to discover that in 1906 Eltham's Bridge Street became New Zealand's first tar-sealed road.   We strolled around admiring the architecture—and the beautifully knitted and crocheted yarn-bomb that decorated a tree outside the library.

Yarn bomb at Eltham

            We visited Lake Rotokare, the rippling lake, inland from Eltham.  In 2008 the Rotokare Scenic Reserve Trust constructed a predator-proof fence around the reserve which has encouraged the proliferation of native birds.  There are plans to bring endangered species such as saddleback, stitchbird and kiwi to Rotokare in the future.  We took the four kilometre-long walkway around the lake, walking through bush, and along boardwalks in the swamp forest section.  This took about two hours, allowing for photo stops.

Lake Rotokare

            The Forgotten Highway may be a road from nowhere particular to somewhere else but along its route, and at either end, there are little places and things that are uniquely New Zealand—things that illuminate our history and our ingenuity.

Information about the walk mentioned in this post

• ·         Lake Rotokare Walkway

http://www.rotokare.org.nz/Visit/Walkways/

4 km, 1.5-2 hrs, easy

Access: Sangster Rd, Eltham