Road trip - Taupo to Wellington

The day after the Taupo bike challenge, we drive from National Park round the back of the stunning mountains. Tongariro broods, Ngarahoe pops out cheekily, and Ruapehu skulks behind the clouds, dribbling snow down her chins and plotting her next eruption. I can hear frogs in the pond for the first time in about ten years.

It is a beautiful day in Ohakune. People sit in a pub watching a replay of last night’s rugby. We drink coffee and read the paper, then ruminate on the giant carrot and a bridge that goes nowhere.

The carrot was unveiled in 1984 to recognise the importance of market gardening to the local economy. It seems they also celebrate new crops, such as strawberry plants and asparagus, alongside the old stalwarts such as parsnips, swedes, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflowers. There is a carrot carnival in July when people dress up as vegetables. I promise I am not making this up.

We drive through rich volcanic bush and up to Turoa ski field. A bloke walking down has been ice-climbing at sunrise but says now the snow is heating up and getting mushy. Mt Taranaki glows like a pimple in the distance.

I love ski fields in the summer – they have an ethereal charm, as though they are waiting for their time which they know will come. Snow machines stand like creations from the War of the Worlds.

A couple of hardy souls (one in fluorescent overalls; another with bare torso) practice snowboarding jumps in the remaining snow. Utiku is home to a merino possum clothing shop (they must be odd animals!) and a fertiliser company. The houses have bright red corrugated iron roofs which stand out in stark contrast to the surrounding green grass – unless you’re colour-blind I suppose. It looks wonderful and I am bemused to remember the brouhaha over the red birds’ nets in Central Otago and Marlborough.

Mangaweka has a DC3 coated in Cookie Team advertising outside the DC3 tearooms. Further down the road, the Flat Hills café looks popular. The café serving farm-style food is right next to a park where tourists can pat ‘friendly goats’ – not too friendly I hope…

Hunterville is ‘the huntaway capital of the world’ and so, naturally, a statue of a huntaway dog graces its park. The Huntaway is the driving force of New Zealand farming; strong and agile with a kindly expression. Next to the statue is a park which strictly prohibits dogs. I imagine them slinking home with tail between their legs if caught out playing on the plastic slides and climbing frames.

Each year the Hunterville Huntaway Festival features dog barking, sheep shearing, obstacle races and ‘country entertainment’. There is also a Shepherd’s Shemozzle which involves the shepherds and their dogs competing over an obstacle and endurance course. And they eat some pretty horrendous things too. This photo is deemed ‘explicit’.

The Argyle Hotel is pink and black like an art deco liquorice allsort, but not a modern retro version – this one looks little changed from the 1920s. Buttercups line the verges and cotton drifts across the road as a farmer does the hay baling, suffocating his Dougals in swathes of plastic.

Sanson is not exactly a picturesque farming town and there is nothing to take photos of, but the Church Café does an excellent chicken Caesar salad with a poached egg atop and the coffee is heavenly – the sign says so and it is. Him Outdoors says his nachos and strawberry milkshake are also very tasty.

This area of the Manawatu is defined by trailers, mowers, bus and coach sales, contracting supplies and plastic tanks. A rusting rugby stand is forlorn by a mown paddock. Waireka honey claims to sell ‘more than just honey’. There are giant irrigation systems and post boxes in the shape of cows.

Foxton reveals a sign that says it is closed for renovations but open soon. Then we can all race back to the largest 2nd hand store in New Zealand, the ice cream parlours, John Deere tractor outlets, windmill and water towers. The petrol station is boarded up and the coming events board is empty. Foxton’s slogan is ‘Hometown NZ’ – I’m glad it’s not my hometown.

Levin has the usual fast food outlets and supercheap auto shops you would expect in rural NZ, where the word bogan might have been invented. It is a depressing town full of clapped-out clapboard shops and houses. It claims to have a cosmopolitan club but I’m not convinced. It also claims to be a high crash area and I’m not surprised considering the driving.
The fertiliser and farming pays off with a range of roadside fruit and vegetable stalls selling fresh, cheap produce. There are also sacks of pony poo however, so you need to check your purchases carefully.

If discount is your motivation, the Otaki is your destination. It is cheap and charmless full of factory outlets for the likes of Rip Curl, Bendon, Billabong, Pumpkin Patch, Pagani, Kia Kaha and Icebreaker. It should be awarded the wooden spoon for the worst town-planning ever, as a two lane roundabout abruptly merges into one lane and a pedestrian crossing – this is State Highway One remember.

Beware of the emu – lifestylers live here. The region appears to be a haven for catteries, dog breeders and basketmakers, according to the signs. Light aircraft buzz about in the sky and Maori carvings decorate the roadside. Buckets of canna lilies are for sale outside spacious homes, boutique vineyards and farmlets.

There are lots of side roads to intriguingly named beaches such as Peka Peka and Waikanae. About an hour (depending on the traffic) from Wellington, this is a beautiful place to live if you can bear the commute. You would be rewarded with sun, beaches, a rural hippy lifestyle, and less wind than the capital. And who wouldn’t want that?

Road trip - Wellington to Taupo

Driving up to Taupo from Wellington and back, we drive through some quintessential Kiwi-land with iconic scenery and towns. Allow me to share it with you.

The town of Bulls has pictures of the beasts everywhere and a slightly disturbing anatomically correct statue outside a medical clinic. It boasts it is ‘not just a turn-off’. No, it’s more than that; it is the home of terri-bull puns. The real estate agent sells houses for $200,000 that are ‘live-a-bull’ and ‘own-a-bull’ and a shop that sells cheap designer gear is called la-bulls.

Bulls does have a really good shop called Bili Tees which sells great t-shirts featuring koru, rainbows or fun slogans from ‘Taupo – it’ll float your boat’ to ‘NZ – the grass is just greener’ or ‘Shut the Hutt up’ – Him Outdoors reckons that last one could drop the last word and still be effective.

It is, indeed, very green with lots of rolling hills in the distance and flat farmland and appalling impatient driving in the foreground. Acres of pleasant iconographic scenery are marred only by Tui billboards; isn’t it time to put these out to pasture? The ‘Yeah, right’ slogan was vaguely amusing when it emerged five years ago but now it is tired and lazy and a poor excuse for humour that unintelligent letter-writers use to share their unoriginal drivel with the nation, thinking they are oh-so-witty.

Taihape welcomes you with a corrugated iron Wellington boot and a ‘Gumboot café’ (Translation – gumboots are what Kiwis call Wellington boots). The town seems to have built itself entirely around said boot and they even have a festival where they set records for the furthest distance one can throw a boot. This all came about because ‘Taihape Promotions’ wanted to promote their town in the 1980s. Due to the decline of the railways and the removal of government subsidies on agricultural supplies, the town was suffering and population fell from 3,500 in the early 1960s to about 1,800 in 1985.

In an attempt to reverse the economic downturn and attract people to their town, the promotions people came up with the idea of marketing themselves as living in gumboot country. According to the Taihape Information Centre, Gumboot Day was invented to ‘entice travellers to stop and see what Taihape had to offer.’ It’s astounding what passes for entertainment in some places, but they do honest burgers on proper buns that don’t taste processed, so full marks for that.

There are ringing bells and flashing lights but no barriers at a State Highway 1 level crossing just outside Taihape as we wait for a train to pass. How much would barriers cost to install? Surely they’d be worth it. With the scarcity of trains in New Zealand you’d have to be very unlucky to get caught out on a level crossing but the Ministry of Transport figures reveal that between 1998 and 2004 there were 158 accidents at level crossings – 55 of them fatal. That seems like 55 too many deaths to me.

Ruapehu is enveloped in cloud as usual as the pylons march along the desert road. It is dry, windy and barren with nothing but studs of tussock punctuating the swathes of dirt. Caravans and boats crawl across the landscape with snail trails of impatient traffic in their wake.

Passing through Waiouru, warning signs advise us that ‘Army exercises are conducted at any time’ and ‘live firing and explosions’. They suggest we stay on the road for our own safety. Where else are we going to go? The road twists, turns and dips like a rollercoaster in a bizarre lunar theme park.

Long-haired kids in t-shirts and low-rider shorts swing on the gun barrels and stand on the tanks’ turrets at the Army Museum. The Oasis Hotel looks stunningly uninviting. I know it’s the end of the desert road (there’s that ‘humour’ again), but you’d be more tempted to die of thirst.

Straight roads are lined with uniform fir trees and bright bushes of gorse. Sharp-beaked magpies wait for roadkill and the clouds are pushed out to the edge of the horizon like frothy suds around a bottomless blue pool.

Turangi is apparently the trout capital of the world, with an obligatory model of a big trout. The scenery changes to babbling brooks, weeping willows and neat roads fringed with green and pampas grasses. We catch our first sighting of Lake Taupo at Mission Bay where two black swans usher their cygnets jealously away from onlookers.