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| Sign at Woodville |
From Napier, SH 2 goes inland
as it runs south between the Ruahine and Tararua Ranges. Long, winding, minor roads go east to the
coast but this is a part of New Zealand that has turned its back on the
sea. Tararua is a little piece of New
Zealand's agricultural heartland, tucked in between Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa. There is a rugged, pioneering feel to some of
the settlements, and people making their mark on the area today have the same
characteristics. Māori, who named the area
Te Tapere Nui o Whatonga, the great food basket of Whatonga, remind us of their
history with many marae and place names, including the longest one in the
world:
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukākāpikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu.
Tararua is a motorhome-friendly area. We found plenty of freedom camping spots and
low cost parking—the visitor's guide to the area listed many of them. We explored lots of interesting townships
that gave us insights into the pioneering beginnings of the district.
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| Norsewood |
Little Norsewood was a fascinating
place, where we learned about the Scandinavian settlement of the area. This 'heritage village' showcased many
pioneering buildings and had a real Norwegian feel to it. The original 483 settlers arrived in 1872 and
set about clearing a dense forest known as the Seventy Mile Bush. They were joined by other Scandinavians and
eventually the land was made suitable for sheep, cattle and dairy farming. Life was difficult for these early pioneers,
who struggled against poverty and natural disasters. A fire in 1888 destroyed much of the town and
many of the buildings date from the rebuild.
St David's Church and the Pioneer Cottage are listed by Heritage New
Zealand. Norsewood remembers its traditions
by teaching Norwegian folk dance at school, while on the nearest Sunday to May
17th, Norway's National Day, the whole town celebrates.
Two
things we noticed while walking around the settlement were the unique wheel the
Norwegians developed for the hard terrain they were working in—it looks like a
Viking shield —and the carved trolls. We
have visited Norway and recognised the distinctive carving style. We admired the Pioneer Museum and Johanna's
World, which has New Zealand's only replica of a Norwegian stave church,
something else we had seen in Norway.
After
calling at the Scandi Superette and paying the nightly fee for camping at the ANZAC reserve—where Tangaroa was parked—and getting
bargain-price Norsewear socks at the New Zealand Natural Clothing Shop, we took
a loop drive through Ormondville. This
settlement grew in importance when the railway arrived in 1880 and became a
thriving township. Now it is a
picturesque backwater with a pub, a beautiful church and a railway station. Restored, and with a 1950s vibe, the station
is used for boutique accommodation.
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| Ormondville |
About
20 kilometres south of Norsewood we came to Dannevirke, settled mainly by
families from Sweden and Denmark. Māori
in the area are descended from arrivals on the Tākitimu and Kurahaupō
canoes. A legacy from this era is the
Makirikiri Marae built around the time that the Scandinavian settlers were
arriving. Little evidence of the Danish
settlers remains in Dannevirke as, like Norsewood, it suffered a devastating
fire. On Labour Day in 1917 many
residents were at the racecourse watching motorcycle racing so the fire burned
unchecked, destroying most of the south part of the town. The Gallery of History, housed in the former
Courthouse, has historical information and artefacts—otherwise the only evidence
of Vikings is in the signage—hairy, horned-helmeted characters seemed to be
everywhere.
We
took the car for a road trip one day, driving east from Norsewood to the
coast. We travelled along windy roads
where settlements were few and far between.
Porangahau Beach had a long sweep of sand and freedom camping in the
dunes—we thought we might take Tangaroa
there someday. Just down the road we
found the world's longest place name which translates (in one account) as, the
hilltop, where Tamatea with big knees, conqueror of mountains, eater of land,
traveller over land and sea, played his koauau (flute) to his beloved. The sign was worth a photo stop, though the
hill itself was underwhelming.
We
stopped for coffee at the pub-cum-shop at Herbertville, named after pioneer
settlers Joseph and Sarah Herbert who arrived in 1854. The pub owners are contemporary pioneers, new
to the area, who have been sprucing up the building and offering
accommodation. Herbertville and nearby
Akitio once supplied London-bound ships with wool from coastal stations and the
woolshed at Akitio dates from 1883. We
walked along beach from Herbertville towards Cape Turnaround, named by Captain
Cook in 1769 as he retraced his passage along the coast.
Inland
from Akitio the gravel road meandered towards Pongaroa where we had lunch at
the Post Office-cafe-shop-second-hand-store.
The settlement is the area's main centre, and the signpost outside the
shop was indicative of this with towns and routes leaving in all
directions. The Maurice Wilkins Monument
nearby honours a son of Pongaroa who discovered a double helix, leading to the
understanding of the DNA molecule.
South
of Dannevirke on SH 2 we came to Woodville—so named for the bush it was once
in—and the third of the Scandinavian settlements in the Seventy Mile Bush. Nowadays the town's main attraction is the
Gottfried Lindauer Replica Studio. The
Bohemian-born artist built his house and studio in Woodville in 1890, where he
lived until his death in 1926. We looked
inside the studio, where there were prints of Lindauer's paintings, along with
furniture and other memorabilia. We had
moved Tangaroa to a freedom camping
spot at the entrance to the Manawatu Gorge so we could look around Woodville,
but now it was time for us to move
further south—into the Wairarapa.
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| Woodville street sign |
Masterton,
Carterton, Greytown and Featherston are all pioneer settlements strung out
along SH 2, as can be seen by their architecture and guessed by their
names. These towns have a different vibe
to the Scandinavian settlements to the north—part rural town, part
sophisticated outpost of Wellington. The
largest, Masterton, was founded in 1854 by Joseph Masters of the Small Farms
Association. Visitors can learn about
the region's history at Aratoi, the Wairarapa Museum of Art and History and
adjacent Wool Shed. We found out that
sheep have an important place in Masterton's history and the town hosts the
famous Golden Shears sheep shearing event each March. The main street doesn't live in the past though, it is
bustling and bursting with modern shops and cafes.
Ten
minutes further down the road we came to Carterton, established to house
workers building the road between Masterton and Greytown. Originally known as Three Mile Bush, its name
was changed to honour Charles Carter, another leading figure in the political
and farming circles of the era. His
memory is perpetuated by a large statue and information board in the town
centre. Carterton is famous as the
Daffodil Capital of New Zealand—springtime visitors can take in the Daffodil
Carnival, where flowers can be picked from a specially planted field.
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| Greytown scene |
My
favourite of these settlements is Greytown, New Zealand's first inland town,
named after Governor Grey. It boasts the
country's most complete main street of wooden Victorian buildings. Greytown helpfully has information plaques on
many buildings and we narrowly avoided getting run down as we dodged from one
side of the street to the other reading them.
The town has plenty of boutique shops and cafes—Wellingtonians brave the
windy Rimutaka road at weekends to indulge in fine food and wine, search for
antiques and enjoy the ambiance.
At
the end of town we came across a large gum tree, planted in 1856. A sign told the story of one Samuel Oates who
became the first to take a wheeled vehicle over the Rimutaka Hill Track—his
wheelbarrow. In it, together with his
belongings, were twelve gum tree saplings destined for Mr Carter of Carterton
fame. While Samuel was resting at the
Rising Sun Hotel in Greytown three of these plants disappeared, subsequently
found planted in Greytown. Two trees
were later cut down but the remaining gum tree is thriving.
Last
in line was Featherston, named for Isaac Featherston, another pioneering
politician. The town's importance grew
when the railway came through in the 1870s, though it later declined. Now, like the other towns along the road, it
is reinventing itself as a destination, with cafes and antique and collectable
stores.
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| At the Fell Locomotive Museum |
We
stopped to visit the Fell Locomotive Museum, which houses the only remaining Fell
engine in the world. Watching a black
and white, newsreel-style documentary from the 1940s we learned how folks got
across the Rimutakas by rail back in those days. Part of the journey was over the Rimutaka
Incline, New Zealand's steepest line from 1878 to its closure in 1955. Carriages were pulled over this dramatic and
alarming scenery by Fell engines, their descent controlled by the brake van,
which got through a set of brake shoes each trip. Volunteers have painstakingly restored
locomotive H 199 (built in 1875) and brake van F 210, which are displayed along
with memorabilia and models. It was
interesting to contemplate the remote lives that the railway families lived up
at the Rimutaka Summit—the monotony only punctuated by the arrival and departure
of trains.
Fifteen
minutes south of Featherston we came to the pretty settlement of Martinborough,
set amidst wineries and rolling countryside.
John Martin was an early local businessman who set out the streets of
the town centre in the shape of the Union Jack and called the town after
himself. The streets are named after
places he had visited on a world tour.
Grapes were planted in the 1970s and the town hasn't looked back
since. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch at
one of the town's cafes.
We parked
Tangaroa beside Lake Wairarapa while
exploring this part of the region. At 18
kilometres in length and with a width of six kilometres, Lake Wairarapa is the
third largest lake in the North Island, being slightly smaller than Lake
Rotorua. At its southern end it drains
into Lake Onoke, which is protected from the ocean by a long spit. We drove along the western shore of the lake
and down to Onoke Beach. The coast was
rugged here, with a few old baches dotted along the shoreline beneath
bluffs. We had hoped to walk along some
of the spit but access was blocked by flooding.
At
the Lake Ferry side of Lake Onoke (reached by driving almost to Martinborough
before looping back) we watched a digger open a trench in the spit to allow
Lake Onoke to drain into the ocean.
Water was pouring out at an amazing rate. In the past, farmers had wanted to open a
permanent outlet from Lake Onoke to prevent flooding. Wairarapa Māori objected to the loss of their
fisheries. Eventually Māori gifted the
lakes to the crown, retaining mana (authority) over the lakes. Luckily the ecological value of the wetlands
became recognised and, since the 1980s, a conservation order has been in place,
protecting wildlife. The eastern side of
Lake Wairarapa is an important habitat for bar-tailed godwits and other species
of bird. We walked along a stop-bank
track at Matthews and Boggy Pond Wildlife Reserve, which has views of the
wetlands and a bird hide for viewing the wildlife.
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| Castlepoint lighthouse |
Castlepoint
was our next destination. This
lighthouse is about an hour's drive from Masterton. Captain Cook called the promontory Castle
Point, as the landform looked fortress-like.
Māori tell how the ancestor Kupe was sailing from Hawaiki when he saw an
octopus which he chased into a cave on the headland. The lighthouse was built in 1913 to try to
halt the number of shipwrecks occurring along the coast—it is New Zealand's
third highest light. It was an easy walk
to get to the light, across the beach and up some steps. The views past the lighthouse along the coast
were splendid.
South
of Martinborough, a minor road goes past Lake Ferry and down to Cape Palliser. We drove Tangaroa
along this scenic road—it is mostly sealed as far as the lighthouse, though it has
an interesting area of 'active slip' around the side of a cliff at one
point. The lighthouse was prettily
striped in red and white, though we had to climb up 250 steep steps to get up
to it.
This
is the southernmost tip of the North Island—it is further south than Blenheim
and Nelson—and the views were great.
Like Castlepoint, Cape Palliser was named by Captain Cook but Māori have
prior naming rights—the sail-shaped cliffs nearby are known as Kupe's
sail. Legends tell that when Kupe was
sailing in the area 1,000 years ago, he had a sail making competition with his
companion Ngaki. Kupe's sail was
finished first and so the cliff-side was named in his honour. Down at beach level there were seals to
admire in the rocky pools. The fur seal
colony here is New Zealand's largest and we spent some time watching them sun
themselves on rocks and playing in the kelp.
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| Cape Palliser lighthouse |
The
nearby fishing village of Ngawi was interesting. Along a section of the beach there were
tractors and bulldozers with hugely-long trailers attached. Between 20 and 30 boats go crayfish fishing
from here and later we watched from our freedom camp spot, just north of Ngawi,
as some of the boats were picking up their pots.
At Te
Kopi we parked at the DOC campground to walk amongst some strange scenery. The Putangirua Pinnacles Scenic Reserve is
otherworldly—no wonder it was used as the setting for the 'paths of the dead'
in the Lord of the Rings movie. The pinnacles were reached by a track which
followed the sides of the river up the valley.
After about an hour we began to walk amongst the pinnacles, and for
about half an hour we wandered around admiring the formations. These hoodoos, or badlands erosion pillars,
were formed over the past 120,000 years by erosion of ancient gravel
deposits. Rainwater has caused fluting
on some outcrops, others stand like Cathedral pillars. I can honestly say I have never walked
anywhere like it.
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| At the pinacles |
Another
weird place to visit in the Wairarapa is Stonehenge Aotearoa. This is not a replica of England's famous
circle but is a modern interpretation, built as an observatory and specifically
designed for its location. A combination
of current scientific knowledge together with Celtic , Egyptian, Māori and
Polynesian star lore, Stonehenge Aotearoa has something to interest astronomers,
history buffs and curious visitor alike.
My daughter and son-in-law joined us for a look around before we headed
off for wine tasting at a vineyard near Martinborough. This had been an interesting region—from Vikings
to vines, via the paths of the dead.
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| Stonehenge Aotearoa |
Information about places mentioned in this post - correct at the time of writing
Walks
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Putangirua Pinnacles
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/wairarapa/places/putangirua-pinnacles-scenic-reserve/things-to-do/pinnacles-track
2-4 hr return (depending
on route)easy: walking track
Access: 1271, Cape
Palliser Rd, Aorangi Forest Park
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Matthews and Boggy Pond
Wildlife Reserve
www.gw.govt.nz/sites-of-interest
2.6 km loop track, easy
Access: Parera Rd,
Featherston
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Castlepoint Lighthouse
http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/wairarapa/places/castlepoint-scenic-reserve/things-to-do/lighthouse-walk/
30 min return, easiest:
short walk
Access: Castlepoint
Scenic Reserve, Masterton Castlepoint Rd
Places to visit
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Norsewood Pioneer Museum
Thor St, Takapau
Hours: 8.30 am-4.30 pm
Entry price: adult $2.00
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Johanna's World
Upper Norsewood
www.troll.co.nz/55652
ph 06 437 8131
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Gottfried Lindauer Replica
Studio
Vogel St, Tararua
www.gottfried-lindauer.co.nz
Hours: Monday-Friday 8.00
am-5.00 pm, weekends and public holidays 9.00 am-2.00 pm
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Fell Locomotive Museum
Lyon St, Featherston
www.fellmuseum.org.nz
Hours: 10.00 am-4.00 pm
Entry price: adult $6,
child $2
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Stonehenge Aotearoa
51, Ahiaruhe Rd, Ahiaruhe
www.stonehenge-aotearoa.co.nz
Hours: 10.00 am-4.00 pm
Entry price: adult $15,
senior $10, child $5
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