Ok, the jobs glut was shortlived.
So, we’ve sat down and Louise would like to be able to give her Mum and Dad a really good taste of New Zealand across the board.
I’ve started putting together an itinerary for their stay so we can plan what best to do. We’ll pick them up from Auckland airport and take a couple of days travelling down to home. So that’s where I’ve started.
Hmm, only a couple of jobs today, so was all finished by about 9.30am……….
We had a quick chat and decided to go for a bike ride, mine and Louise’s, over the Rimutaka to Palliser Bay.
The Putangirua Pinnacles near Palliser were the location for the Lord of the Rings “Paths of the Dead”. We’d often talked about going there, but Ian Brodie’s LOTR guide book mentioned a 2-3 hour return walk from the road, and we’d not really had the time before.
Louise’s trip over the Rimutaka wasn’t too bad, although the winds were a little bad.
We got down to Putangirua car park (a gravel track to a camping spot) after stopping off to pick up some lunch at a roadside store. We stripped off the helmets and bike jackets and stored them in the top box on my bike, grabbed the lunchbag and off we went.
WOW!!
The entrance to the pinnacles was meant to be a gentle tromp of about 40 mins – to quote the local beer advert again ” Yeah, right”! That’ll be that Kiwi understatement bit again….
It did only take about 50 mins, it was fairly gentle, in a rocky stream bed sort of way….
Mentioning no names, but one of us didn’t quite make it all the way to the top….and I was carrying the camera….
If you look really closely at the last picture, you can almost make out someone having a rest while I took a photo from the top of the valley – OOPS, that means it wasn’t me….
Afternoon tea on the Paths of the Dead! Cool!
The trip back wasn’t quite so good. The wind was REALLY high on the Rimutaka.
As I rode in front around a particularly blustery LH corner, a high gust lifted the front of my bike off the road. Luckily, I’ve been riding for a while, so I leaned forward and hard over to the left and got around no problem.
I pulled straight over and stopped the bike to warn Louise (I’d already been flashing my brake lights for a while). Unfortunately, the gust blew Louise’s bike to the other side of the road. I was already slowing traffic down, so she wasn’t in danger and managed to pull over to the side of the road by the fence as the traffic went past. As soon as it was clear, she pulled back over and we continued to the top for a well-earned rest stop and relax!
At least the rest of the trip was uneventful….
Ooh, excitement in the household – Louise’s parents, John and Margaret, have confirmed they’ll be out to visit in three weeks or so! Louise is very happy indeed!! I think a days-to-do badge might be in order.
We had done a little investigating for them, but they went with a trip through the travel agents in Torquay. It means they’re flying in and out of Auckland airport, so after a little thought, rather than booking a flight back up to Auckland as they leave, we’ll arrange a coming down 2-3 days to do some sightseeing and do the same on the way back up! It doesn’t look like the job market is going anywhere just yet, so we’ll have plenty of time to show them around a bit.
Only 1 job on the websites today
We found the Forgotten World Highway, luckily we stumbled across it. No-one could tell us where it started…….they’d forgotten!
And….we’re back!
We stayed overnight at the Alexander Spa Motel – a lovely welcome, comfortable beds and a quick trip to the small spa on site which is always gorgeous after a long bike ride!
Luckily there were no fires that night, so the Fire Station opposite was quiet! There are plenty of restaurants around the motel, but we headed for the RSA (Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association) for what turned out to be a lovely meal. When one of the girls returned for the dishes at the end of the meal, Louise stared down at her empty plate and with a dead-pan face said “That was awful, I couldn’t eat a thing!” The look on the girl’s face was priceless – total confusion! We all three started laughing as the joke sunk in and we had a great chat about the world in general while finishing our drinks…………
We started at the Northern end of the Forgotten World Highway (the area was originally settled by many people until the area was bypassed to the North and South by other main roads and the population dwindled steadily until it was designated in 1990 as being “Forgotten” ) at Taumaranui, which was a bit confusing when following the trail map we’d downloaded from the Windwand website as it starts at the other end!
After leaving the outskirts of town at about 8 am, the road headed out by a river with layered hills showing the various stone/earth/shale of years gone by but soon heads into vast areas of complete quiet, solitude and beautiful views.
We meandered through this wonderful landscape until we came to the Tangarakau Gorge, where the road is still un-metalled (ie. gravel). This shows the difficulties early settlers had breaking trail through the native bush – astounding really!
We stopped at Whangamomana Hotel (Whangamomana is the capital of the Whanga Republic – set up as an independent state as the government of New Zealand didn’t seem to care about them – the clue is the Forgotten bit) for a coffee, and to watch the world go by for a while. We chatted to some bikers that turned up here, including one couple who rode Suzuki V-Stroms (him a 1000cc like mine, and her a 650cc with a lowered suspension). It seemed to be quite an easy fix, so should Louise ever want a bigger bike, we’ll be able to sort it easy!
While we were chatting an “older lady” turned up on a pushbike. She turned out to be in her late seventies and had just cycled “over the hill” – this is a typical Kiwi understatement! The hill turned out to be bad enough with a motorbike, let alone a bicycle! More power to her elbow! Well, I suppose it was more her legs, lungs and heart I suspect………….
We finished off the Forgotten Road Highway at Stratford some 150km of superb motorbiking road from the other end. What a great experience!
We rode on down to Hawera on the cost and found a lovely park to have a rest and a drink of water (we’d learned to carry our own).
The park had all the usual rules …. no smoking, no bike riding, no horses, no dogs, no canoodling, no fun, no flying (not quite that bad, but you get the idea) …. and we were very good, not partaking of or doing anything to offend anyone. We didn’t even have any food for the ducks you can see on the pond (and there were quite a few flying/sitting/swimming would-be eiderdowns and pillows around).
Imagine our surprise then, when just after taking the picture above …. a Kawasaki superbike was ridden down the left-hand side of the lake and off onto the main road behind us. Everybody in the park, us included, just stopped and stared in disbelief! I can’t speak for everyone else of course, but I was willing him to slip on the grass and take his bike for a quick paddle in the water!!
We turned east here, leaving the Surf Highway towards the west for another trip. Back down to Wanganui and off home. Our first “holiday weekend” trip, and what a lovely weekend’s worth of riding too!!
Bike trip today then! Up, packed and out early this morning on the the way to Taumarunui.
Rather than detour for better roads from Levin, we pushed on up the SH1 to Bulls (memora-bull place) stopping at Foxton on the way for coffee at the Cafe on Route66/SH1 – just for you Fitz!
We carried on up to Bulls and took the SH3 to Wanganui where we stopped for a refill – petrol and coffee!
We then took the SH4 up to Taumarunui and were looking forward to it as we hadn’t done this stretch before.
We stopped at the Raukawa Falls and chatted to a couple of fashion designers/deliverers from the UK who had taken a year off during the recession to travel around the world. They’d done 2 months in Australia and were well into their trip around New Zealand – however, going stir crazy in the small camper van!
Off and riding again, we headed for the Station cafe in National Park – not the National Park, but National Park the town…….
We headed off for the last bit of the trip felling suitably refreshed, with Mt Ruapeho on our right.
We arrived at Taumarunui in time to book in, walk around to the local RSA (Returned Servicemans Association) for a lovely dinner and then, after a little walk for dinner to go down, into a spa pool before bed – bliss!
Distance travelled 313km (approx 196 miles)
Quick update – I managed to get all the online courses with Skillsoft opened to me! Roll on MCSE, MCTIP and CCNA training!!
Am catching up on the blog for the last week. My bad!
However, we’re off to the start of the Forgotten Highway tomorrow, stopping at a motel in Taumarunui tomorrow night.
On Sunday we’ll be travelling down the Forgotten Highway – here is an extract:
Built on colonial bridle paths formed in the late 19th century, the highway is remote and mysterious to the extreme. “A bit upsy downsy” is how one local resident puts it – a classic New Zealand understatement to describe a road that hugs the rugged contours of the land to provide a natural roller coaster experience.
We decided that it might not be such a good idea for Louise to ride this time, we’re going two-up on mine instead!!
If you want to check it out while we’re there, you can see a few titbits at the windwands website.
If nothing is heard from us by Sunday evening (Sunday morning, UK), you’ll have an idea of where to send the search parties to start looking!
A really blowy night last night!
However, the sky had cleared, giving us this gorgeous sunrise looking from the deck!
We had a visit from another Kiwi lifeform today. This one had been disguised as a mop on the deck. Imagine my surprise when it didn’t appreciate being used to clear the leaves from the night before!!
We named this one “Fluffy”, for reasons which should be obvious!!
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