Forgotten World Highway - Stratford to Taumarunui Part 2 - 30 December 2024

Whangamōmona was established in 1897 and had always been part of the Taranaki region. That is, until the regional council boundaries were redrawn in 1989 and the maps were revised, leaving Whangamōmona in the Manawatu-Wanganui Region. This was due to the Whangamōmona River being a tributary of the Whanganui River. Residents objected as they wanted to continue being part of the Taranaki Region. The story has it that over a few beers at the Whangamōmona Hotel, a suggestion was made by the then Mayor of Stratford in Taranaki that they should declare Whangamōmona a republic. And that is just what they did! On 1 November 1989, they declared themselves the "Republic of Whangamomona" at the first Republic Day. And of course, every republic needs a president!

The first president of Whangamōmona, Ian Kjestrup served, for ten years, having had his name put on the ballot without his knowledge. The second president of Whangamōmona was Billy Lee Goat. Yes, he was an actual goat! According to Wikipedia, he won the election by eating the other candidates’ ballots. He died in office. The third president of Whangamōmona was Tai the Poodle who retired after an assassination attempt. He had a bit of a ruckus with another dog which left him a bit snappy and not fit to be around small children. Murt Kennard followed and also died in office, but not before he was knighted and is now referred to as CRR Murt Kennard (Chief Republic Revolter). Vicki Pratt followed Murt, and the current president John Herlihy has been in office since 2017 and will be running for office again later this month. Apparently, in 2019 he fought off challenges from Maketoni the Teddy Bear, Sherman the Cockatoo, Eunice the Sheep, Griff Robb (who proposed that the land-locked nation should enter into maritime tourism), and a Mrs Brown look-alike at the polls. When John enters the Whangamōmona Hotel he declares his presence for all to know he has arrived. The town has a population of approximately 140, and on election day they have had crowds of up to 5000 people! This Hotel was built in 1911 after the first hotel was destroyed by fire in 1903. All of the rooms have shared facilities, however, you can stay in the lodge which has rooms with ensuites. Our night’s accommodation, dinner, and breakfast were all part of our package with Forgotten World Tours, so we were staying in the main Hotel. Lance was limping at this time, I know, it is a common theme in these blogs of mine. But this time it was just a temporary injury from when he missed the bottom step at home and yes he was sober. Anyway, he called the Hotel before we left to see if we could have a room where he didn't have far to walk to the bathroom, and low and behold they put us downstairs. Very convenient for the injured party, however, the room was tucked into the back of the hotel and had two single beds in a tiny space. The upside was the bathroom was only a shared between us and one other room, and ... there was no one staying in the other room. So we just locked off that section and had things to ourselves.

As this day was an auspicious occasion, Lance's birthday, we settled in for an early beer, wine, or two and in fact a Guinness even featured at one point! There were plenty of people to chat with and most of the patrons seemed to be nipping through the Forgotten Highway by road. Most of them were riding really lovely big motorcycles. Dinner was great, and standard pub fare but fresh and well cooked.

I don't know why we locked our room off, because not much else was locked up. After an interesting night's sleep, the beds were a bit wonky, we showered and packed and left our quarters for breaky. The only person that we came across was the chef, who was working in the kitchen. The bar was open, well not open like selling stuff, but wide open! No locks on the grog!

The toilet seat pictured is a canny bracket for the overhead projector. It looks like the sort of place where locals may gather to watch the rugby. As we were breaking our fast with fruit and cereal one of our tour guides popped in to collect our cases (they are transported separately) and let us know that once again we had no other travel companions and we had the tour to ourselves for the first part of the day.

We were pretty happy with that as we were getting to know our guides and were having a bit of fun and a lot of laughter. So off we went up to the tracks where our little cart was waiting.

This second day was a lot chillier and for most of the journey, we had rain. The carts do have roll-down sides, but we chose to leave them up so we could see the vista and left our windscreen down as well. All carts have a waterproof blanket, so with that over our laps, we carried on with the adventure.

As we were entering the King Country the green paddocks gave way to native bush and more hills and valleys, of course, we were not going to go over these hills, we went through them. And it was easy to see why it took 32 years to complete this train track using picks and shovels. Tunnels appeared from the undergrowth and the bridges got higher!

Passing the remnants of lives in the past reminded us of the pioneers who worked the land. At every stop, there were stories both orally and on posts to give us an idea of what life had been like.

I did note that there was not a lot of history of Maori who also lived in these parts. On asking our guides they told us that the company was currently working with iwi to ensure that the stories were correct and respectful before they shared them. However, we did find out that the area named the King Country was not named for the King of England. It was named for the Maori King, King Tāwhiao. The original area of the King Country was supposed to have been decided from the area of a map covered by King Tawhaio's hat. After another scoff of home baking for morning tea at Tangarakau we got back on board, but not before grabbing a pic of our lovely ladies!

And I had to include this sign that appeared in every long drop. It made you wonder, as you were perched on the throne, just what was lurking below and looking up at you?

Gradually we entered farming country again, this time with more sheep than cattle. The 7,000-hectare Paparata Station is owned by Trevor Johnson who is well known for his innovation in farming and the quality of what is produced on his station. Now 7000 hectares may not be large in some countries, but in New Zealand, it is pretty big.

The rain continued to fall as we arrived at Tokirima, which was to be our lunch stop and where we would meet up with the other tour. As we arrived before the others we were told to get stuck in while we could. Again we had lovely fresh salad sandwiches and baking.

Devouring our lunch Jo, our guide came and sat down. She said, "We have two options, option one is that shortly a bus with 26 people will be arriving..." I quickly cut her off with, "We'll take option two!" "Great choice" was her reply as the bus arrived and the other tourists alighted. It was the usual mish-mash of people, but after having the tour all to ourselves it would have been a bit of a pain to have to wait for them all to get on and off at the stops and, queue for the long drops and elbow them aside to get to the afternoon tea baking. So off we sped in a different and Lance said more 'speedy' cart! The rain cleared as we left the rugged hills and we continued on to Ōhura where we stopped for a quick bit of info. It was hard to believe that this small township had once been a bustling and thriving community boasting three garages, a Ford dealer that sold the most Fords in New Zealand two years in a row, a Farmer's department store, Cossey Club, and primary and high schools. There are still people living there and the S.D.A Church occupies what was once the Ōhura State Prison a low-security prison that closed in 2005.

Our last afternoon tea was in a real town! With a couple of shops and houses, we even had the keys to the town hall for a flushing toilet! As we pulled into Matiere the sweet smell of hay sitting in bales alongside hit us. This town has the good fortune of a couple who started a business by chance when over 30 years ago their baby daughter needed a baby swing and so began the story. They crafted a baby swing out of wood and canvas for baby Solvej, and people were interested, so interested that the business was exporting to other parts of the world, even Kourtney Kardashian has one and has put it on her top Holiday items list! They are still producing the swings called Solvej Swings right out of this tiny township! Our last and longest tunnel was 1.25 kilometers long and took eight years to build. When we got to the centre we all stopped and Jo told us that the tunnel was planned using a theodolite and compass, the men began at each end of the would-be tunnel and worked to reach the centre. When they finally broke through the rock the custom was to pass whiskey back and forth sipping and sharing (no COVID back then). The bottles were placed in the wall and cemented over. This is a pic of the only bottle that has been found so far.

When all of the lights were turned off it was pitch black, I mean really, really dark! You couldn't see your hand in front of your face! We were relieved to get out of that tunnel, and it was freezing in there!

We chugged along to the end of the line, passing more and more of civilisation until we got to Okahukura where the line ends. Well, it has to end because New Zealand Rail took the overbridge down. We said our goodbyes and our thank yous, picked up our car which was waiting for us unscathed, and headed to our Taumarunui motel for the night. Not luxury, but it would do. You would think that they would invest in some sort of filter curtains so that we would be less exposed!

Over and out from engine driver Lance and conductor Erynn.

The Forgotten World Highway - Stratford to Taumarunui New Zealand Part 1 - 27 December 2024

Lance has been eager to take this trip for a few years, and we finally got to do it! The actual Forgotten Highway is a road that runs 148 km from Stratford in Taranaki to Taumarunui in the King Country. It is a rugged and very scenic route on State Highway 43 and is a three hour drive. We chose to take an alternative route on alternative transport that would take us through 24 hand-cut tunnels, across its 90-plus hand-built bridges that wend through some beautiful New Zealand farmland and bush. To break up the two-day journey was a stay at the iconic Whangamōmona Hotel.

There was a choice on where to start the journey, closer to Auckland in Taumarunui or further afield in Stratford. The dates lined up for us to take the Stratford option in Taranaki as our starting point and a bonus meant that we could catch up with family in New Plymouth and Stratford. Overnighting in New Plymouth we found that most places had no vacancy and our late booking found us at the 299 Devon West Motel on Devon West Street. It was adequate and clean, but it did have an overpowering carpet cleaner smell which made me choose to keep something on my feet at all times. Who knows what they had recently cleaned up? It also had a very '70s vibe and intermittent wifi, apparently because it was a windy day! And... that she had upgraded our room to a bigger one, we could have the run of the room but please only use one bed.

The following night we found that the Amity Court Motel in Stratford was a much better choice. Modern, clean, and a large bed that rivaled the previous night's 'roll together' mattress. Forgotten World Tours picked us up and we headed off to the tracks which were off the beaten track!

Our guide, Jo, welcomed us and explained that no other guests were joining us in Stratford and there would only be herself and the two other staff members Celina and Tiana. They said this was unusual and the next day we would pick up ten guests at the Whangmōmona Hotel. After a quick safety briefing and driving instructions on how to use the accelerator pedal, and we hit the tracks! The trip from Stratford is mainly dairy farms, and we wended our way through green pastures with herds of cows stopping their grazing to stare as we chugged by. We had six carts in our procession as Jo and Tiana were towing some to return them to Taumarunui. We were cart number five and Celina brought up the rear checking that we were doing okay.

In 1901 they began building the 142-kilometer Stratford-Okahukura railway, taking 32 years to complete. It was in service for around 70 years before Kiwi Rail 'mothballed' it in 2009. Workers lived in camps along the line and earned less than $1 a day for their nine-hour shift. Now and then we encountered a road crossing, and the leader would signal to slow down and Lance would pass on the wave. Even though the cars had giveway signs we needed to approach with caution as these are country roads where people may not expect to find a series of golf carts in the middle of the road. It was at one of these crossings near the small rural settlement of Toko that we saw our car go flying by! We had paid extra to have someone drive our car to Taumarunui for when we arrived the following afternoon, and they passed us as we crossed the tracks and tooted at us! The other option was to get a Forgotten World shuttle back to where we started, but this would take us further away from Auckland, so car delivery was a much better option for us. Our first stop was at a place called Douglas. I really can't call it a town as these days there is not a lot there. But in its heyday, it was an overnight stopover for stockbrokers and commercial travelers.

Alongside an old Railway stop (can hardly call it a station) our guides spread out our morning tea. The biscuits were home made and the hot cuppa was very welcome. Amenities were close by and my toilet report is a favourable one. At almost every stop we encountered the cleanest 'long drop' toilets that I have ever experienced. Some with little glass infusers and jars filled with wildflowers. Back on the tracks we went, an easy way to travel. Well, I just had to sit there and Lance operated the speed with the foot pedal and occasional 'slowing down' signals. We had been instructed to keep a 50-metre distance between cars and more in wet conditions. A quick stop was made at Avonstour Island, which was not an island at all, but a rare breed farm owned by John Earney. He is quite a character and came out for a chat. The donkeys pictured are Ponui Donkeys from the island of Ponui in the Hauraki Gulf and are the only feral donkey breed in New Zealand. There were also some black chickens which were black from comb to talon and apparently on the inside as well! They are the Ayam cemani chicken and have some rare excessive black pigment that makes them black inside and out, anticipating your question, no their eggs are not black.

We had been warned that we could have four seasons in one day and to prepare with layers of clothing, a beanie, gloves, and a scarf. I did sort of scoff at the latter but we did take warm jackets, good old Swanndri, an iconic New Zealand brand of clothing. Our first tunnel gave us a hint of how cold we could get, and fortunately most were quite short and we emerged back into the sunshine before the chill could take hold. Whilst the sun was shining, there was a cool breeze as we motored along at 25 kph. So I did have a light jacket on, which was a blessing in the tunnels.

My phone lit the tunnel up for this photo, it was actually pretty dark in all of the tunnels and some of the tunnels were especially long, and the 'light at the end of the tunnel' was not in sight. As you can see in the photos, the track is quite overgrown despite regular maintenance. Many of the sprawling blackberry plants were reaching out across the tracks, and whilst none made contact we did many little jumping maneuvers to avoid getting scratched. At one point these cows decided to join us in a bit of a race! Lunch was enjoyed at Te Wera, which had once been a small settlement alongside the railway. Fresh bread was laid out with an assortment of fillings, corned beef, tomatoes, cheese lettuce, etc. with piccalilli and beetroot relish. Once we had filled our bellies and made a toilet stop in the pristine long drops we continued to enjoy the countryside which was beginning to lose the green paddocks and become more overgrown.

We had been warned that we would likely encounter a variety of stock, or wild goats on the track. The advice was not to stop just keep moving slowly. Apparently, if you stop they will just stand on the tracks and look at you. At one point we had a sheep running straight at us! Each time this happened Lance slowed right down and with bums squeezed tight we chugged along, relieved when the creature finally stopped or bolted through a fence.

At around 2:30 pm we approached the Republic of Whangamōmona. Stopping on the tracks we disembarked and said farewell to our guides, who would be picked up and driven to Taumarunui for the night while we overnighted in the Whangamōmona Hotel. And that is where I will leave you for today, as the republic of Whangamōmona is a story all to itself.