No Fixed Abode: Forgotten World Highway to Mother Earthship B&B

Mon 21 Dec 2015 - Forgotten World Highway

It was with great regret we bade farewell to Bill and Margaret - and New Plymouth. They had been fantastic hosts and looked after us so well and New Plymouth had been such a lovely surprise with its mountain, lovely parks and variety of things to do. But after the now customary super breakfast we said our goodbyes to explore the forgotten world highway.

This road is so called because it follows the course of a railway driven through the bush in the late 1800's to open up a large patch of the interior that prospered for a time but, apart from a few farms, has since become largely deserted. The road itself started off as a dirt track and crosses four 'saddles' (cols or passes). It was notoriously muddy and difficult after rain and there are many information boards along the route telling of cars getting stuck and prime ministers being tipped out of carriages but in true kiwi pioneering spirit life continued and it was eventually metalled then sealed. Even now, however, the were several places along the way where the side had collapsed into the valley and were coned off awaiting repair.

Starting off from Stratford, where we just missed the town clock performing one of its Shakespearean scenes, we meandered through lovely rolling countryside until the first saddle. Pulling over we looked back for our final view of the lovely snow topped Mt Taranaki framed by rolling green hills and a bright blue sky and said goodbye to this special mountain.

Three subsequent saddles presented equally stunning view of the endless open countryside and we could see the mountains of Tongariro and Ruapehu on the horizon, where we'd been a week before. Slow but steady progress along the narrow twists and turns brought us to famous Republic of Whangamomona. This small former frontier town looks like something from a cowboy film with it hotel, that is still open, and other former shops along its single high street. Apparently the residents objected from being re-allocated from one district to another so declared themselves a republic. They have erected border signs and suggest you acquire a passport from the hotel to ensure a safe crossing - all good stuff for the tourist trade. One activity you can do, unique to this area, is rent a golf buggy that has been converted to run on the disused railway line. We chose not to but it would have been fun trundling up the line through some of the many tunnels.

Talking of tunnels, a highlight was a 200m single track road tunnel known locally as the hobbit hole. You have to approach carefully, to ensure nobody is coming from the other end, then pass through the narrow passage with its wooden gabled roof hewn through the bare rock.

Shortly after the tunnel we took a small detour to visit the Mt Damper falls. An 85m waterfall that plunges into a larger canyon in the middle of the bush. We wondered how some of these places were ever discovered.

Some way further the road becomes unsealed for the final highlight of the journey the Tangarakau Gorge. With forested walls around 70m high and a meandering river at its base it was a spectacular finale to the highway.

As we were heading north we turned off a few miles from the highway's end and passed through the much less famous pioneer town of Ohura. Larger and much more complete and dilapidated than Whangamomona we wondered why it attracted few visitors. Maybe it's all in a name!

An uneventful journey north, now on main highways, brought us to the BnB for the night. Advertised as an 'earthship' it was an eco house made of clay filled tyres set into the hillside of a remote piece of bush and completely 'off grid' - no mains electricity, gas, water or sewage. From the photos on AirBnB it looked intriguing, and it was, but it was also a Heath Robinson place made from recycled (old scrap) everything. To get to the front door we passed a wood fire under a barrel, an old washing machine with a mangle full of clothes and a chaotic wood workshop. When asked about the toilet we were directed to an outside drop toilet (you can visualise) made of corrugated iron and surrounded by chickens. Inside was equally full of stuff with food plants growing everywhere. Brian and Karen were lovely people with stories to tell of the 5 year construction with their 5 young children helping and clearly loved their lifestyle but the mess and lack of cleanliness was not for us so we hastily ate dinner and went to bed having decided not to drink anything so as to avoid the long trek to the outside loo during the night. And never shared a bedroom with giant cactus growing in soil before.