National Park to Whanganui


After Tongariro Crossing the weather packed up majorly so I enjoyed a zero day at National Park, chatting with old friends over coffee (by a fluke of timing they had been at the Chateau nearby) and reading Proust in the pub. Outdoors it rained, sleeted a bit and became very cold. Indoors, red wine and gezeligheid. Next morning, Friday, it was fine if frigid and perfect for hiking. Fisher's Track starts beyond the railway and heads into Erua Forest.



Cordyline indivisa is a bit of a hint about altitude at Erua, and Gaultheria (below, no idea which species) was flowering liberally. I adore both plants and wish they would grow in my garden but they are resolute mountain dwellers. 



It was an easy amble in the general direction of Mt Taranaki (which only I would see in my photos so I won't bore you) until I popped out on a road and headed towards Kaitieke, dropping to 400masl. 



In 15km, my only companions were feral goats, astonished to encounter me (tailwind for them), and curious heifers. 



Kaitieke has vanished, just a monument to war dead and to war horses at a road corner where once were saleyards, stables and a post office. 




The next morning it was raining, as forecast, and I spent the day trudging through a Vincent Ward movie (remember "Vigil"?) towards Whakahoro. I passed Retaruke Hall, 



and eroding hillsides



and was charmed to find the old schoolhouse doing duty as the DOC bunkhouse at Whakahoro. 




I whiled away the rest of the rainy day, and the following one, dealing bridge hands and popping over to Blue Duck Station's café for coffee. That's the funny thing, you spend two days walking through nowhere to arrive at a café! Lots of business groups and touring Germans and cyclists stay at a lodge there and they need coffee!! 

On the first night I heard kiwi and next day I watched three intrepid blokes embark down Whanganui River on inflatable paddleboards. 



Those eroding paddocks at Retaruke were just a foretaste of the papa (sedimentary rock) landscape ahead of me. Here is a farm road on my way to Kaiwhakauka Stream. 


Soldiers returning from WW1 were offered land for development in Kaiwhakauka Valley, and in a heartwrenching reverse version of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, were beaten by water, erosion, depressed wool prices, and Government negligence. 



Now the areas they cleared are reverting to bush, and the track winds past old chimneys and fenceposts. 

A ridge at the head of the valley leads along to a new memorial to the 42 families who were forced to abandon their farms, and I succumbed to the awfulness of the story and had a bit of a cry. 



The route turns into Mangaparua Valley and eventually I camped at Johnson's (a wooden sign indicates where each farm was) where a magnificent Viburnum was running rampant. 



With a jetboat to meet, I was out of camp early yesterday, following Mangapurua Stream to the Whanganui River. 




Yes, that is the track under Cody's Bluff and believe me, I didn't dawdle. 

I reached the Bridge to Nowhere, icon of futility, couldn't see a way to take an original photo and settled for an unoriginal one. 




After another 40 minutes, there's the river and here's the taxi. 



The boatie was happy to take us into the confluence of the Manganuiateao, where I worked on blue ducks in the 1980s,


and delivered us to Pipiriki where I found the paddleboarders, alive and ecstatic at their success. 

I had a lift to Whanganui with the Rural Delivery lady. Without me asking, she stopped at the church at Jerusalem. 


and it was open, and beautiful. 


Finally I was dropped off at Whanganui to spend the night at a friend's place, wallowing in crispy sheets. 

Today, a bus home. Nineteen kilometres on SH3 would be suicidal and the last bit near Bulls is one of my pheasant hunting spots.

Looking at the long range weather forecast, I should be heading away again on Sunday, 11 November. Tararua Ranges. 

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