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  • Day 16

    Forgotten World

    May 16, 2018 in New Zealand ⋅ 🌬 16 °C

    We started our morning at the Taumarunui Holiday Park, one of the least populated campgrounds of our visit, which I very much loved. The bathrooms were free, the kitchen was empty, the laundry was open, the shower was warm. I think in good weather, they may have had kayaks for use. There was a little put in near the campground, and I saw boats stacked up back in the woods.

    Canoeing and kayaking is apparently a big deal down the Wanganui River, which our campsite backed up to. Good thing we got our little kayak trip in up north, as down here the rivers all seemed very flooded. The rain continued off and on throughout the day.

    We wanted to explore the forgotten world highway, and decided our best bet was to drive it down to Whangamomona, have our meal at the famed Whangamomona Hotel, and then continue our trek north.

    The Forgotten World Highway is New Zealand's oldest heritage trail, and has a number of attractions along its route. Even though I had a list of attractions we wanted to look at, we honestly couldn't find them all. The highway truly did seem forgotten. They call it upsy downsy, and it's clearly a challenging route to maintain.

    Today, landslides and rock slides were prevalent. It was both interesting and unnerving to observe. Huge portions of the road had collapsed, and very large boulders and mud slides had come down into the road. These were some of the steepest most undulating sheep farms I've ever seen, and the Tangarakau Gorge seemed primatively untouched.

    The forest in the Tangarakau Gorge is called podocarp, and the road here is also unpaved. All the rain made magnificent displays of waterfalls everywhere! Fall after fall after fall was spurting out of the rock walls on both sides of the road. Some fell hundreds of feet, some less than 10 as they spurted out of the greenery.

    We stopped for a break and a walk at the grave of Joshua Morgan, a very early surveyor and trail blazer in the gorge. He died at 35, and they buried him there in the gorge.

    The river there was rushing, as it was everywhere. Every stream had become a river, and every river had overflowed its banks. Huge trees had fallen all over farms and hillsides. Ones that didn't fall were drown over in the floods. Even hillsides in sheep pastures became waterfalls in places. But zero livestock seemed to mind, and the cows appeared quick frolicky.

    Whangamomona is funny for not only having the only restaurant on the route, but for being its own republic. It declared itself such in 1989. The revolt started with political dispute, but didn't seem to take itself very seriously ever after. Only one of its presidents has been human.

    The hotel is truly old, as it was settled in 1895, and was going strong into the 1960s. It's filled with antique photos of the town, and warmed by a wooden stove. You can even get your passport stamped with their own stamp for their region. Of course we did. We were each tempted by the venison sausages, which were delicious.

    As happens every day, the end of the day arrives. Today we broke our policy of finding a campsite by 5.30p. Our next stop is north at the famed Waitomo glow worm caves, and there was some concern if all the flooding was going to further damage our Forgotten Highway. So we pulled into our Waitomo campground tonight around 8p, and are beat.
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