The Tongariro Crossing is a world-famous hiking trail located in the volcanic region offering stunning views and a rewarding hike in the terrain of the Tongariro National Park. Photo / Visit Ruapehu
The Tongariro Crossing is a world-famous hiking trail located in the volcanic region offering stunning views and a rewarding hike in the terrain of the Tongariro National Park. Photo / Visit Ruapehu
From volcano craters to dinosaur encounters; alpaca walks and carrot-shaped cars, the Ruapehu District is one of New Zealand’s top adventure destinations, writes Helen van Berkel.
“Centre your soul by the heart of our land and feel the winds of our unlocked memory blow.”
The poem hanging on the bathroom wall at Kakahi’s Awa Rua Lodge, near Taumarunui, sums up what the Ruapehu District is about: its land.
This is a land of snow and ice, of rivers and waterfalls, rich soils and their bounty, of human heritage and history – and adventure, all unfolding along State Highway 4 via Taumarunui and to Waiōuru.
I drive from Auckland to Ruapehu District on a Sunday morning to cycle the second leg of the 85km Timber Trail. Following tramlines laid down by pioneer loggers nearly a century ago, the undulating trail traverses the slopes of Mt Pureora over two days to Ōngarue, near Taumarunui.
I spend the night at the Timber Trail Lodge where the land is respected: water that falls from the skies is collected for our hot morning showers, sunshine is stored to power lights and stoves. Before bed, I sit in silence on my veranda and contemplate life, the universe and everything under the icy cold light of the Milky Way spiralling overhead.
Until the 1970s, people exploited the timber that densely wooded these slopes and valleys. We pedal through clearings where women raised children and where rusting remnants of machinery have not yet disappeared into the encroaching vines.
The 85km Timber Trail, traversed over two days, follows the tramlines laid down by pioneer loggers nearly a century ago. Photo / Visit Ruapehu
The Timber Trail unwinds through regenerating bush. We edge canyons carved by snowmelt. We cross swing bridges arching above chaotic streams tumbling over broken rock that flowed from volcanic craters as lava millennia ago. Channels in the track carved by rain and the odd slip remind us that nature holds sway here – and to focus, as instructed by my guide, on the front wheel of the bike as we pedal the old rail lines. I’m proud to hand over my e-bike at the Ōngarue depot with most of its power unused.
Down in the valley, railway lines have survived and Forgotten World Adventures now runs specially modified golf carts on the 142km that run from Ōkahukura, near Taumarunui, to Stratford. The up-to two-day journey through early settlements via the infamous Whangamomona Hotel crosses 90-odd bridges and snakes through 24 hand-built tunnels. I sit in the cool comfort in my cart and picture those workers with picks and shovels carving through solid rock. The rail line took about 30 years to build and was only mothballed in the early 2010s. Now, you can travel it in two days.
Along with the loggers and railway workers came farmers. A generation ago we were proud of our status as the land of 70 million sheep – down to 25m – and now we can walk with alpaca. The genial inhabitants of Nevelea Alpacas are a massive hit with visitors: take one of these inquisitive creatures for a walk on the surrounding slopes and learn all you need to know about South America’s cutest exports. More than 1000 alpacas dot Nevelea’s hills and valleys, bred mainly for their wool but keen to interact with passing visitors, and the handful of food at the end.
Nevelea Alpacas in the Ruapehu District, home to over 1000 alpacas, allows visitors to walk with these cute, inquisitive creatures. Photo / Visit Ruapehu
Ōhakune locals Dave Scott and Peggy Frew understand the importance of the land here – for these Ōhakune Adventure Park volunteers, it is the vegetables it produces that make their part of the world special. Out of the region’s rich volcanic soils come 85 per cent of the North Island’s carrots, about 70 per cent of our potatoes, plus bushels of brussels sprouts and beetroot.
Scott, Frew and a team of enthusiastic volunteers are happy to tell the story “about the carrot”: the icon of Ōhakune that began its life as a bank emblem but has since helped put their town on the map.
The oft-photographed carrot has a secret: behind it sprawls a 6.5ha adventure park peopled by vegetable characters who are a big attraction for kids and grownups alike – and international fascination has led to a funding boost to pay for a rocket to the moon (via a pocketful of imagination).
The often-photographed giant carrot in Ohakune started as a bank emblem and is now a symbol that puts the town on the map. Photo / Visit Ruapehu
There are swings and slides, climbing ropes and hopscotch and, of course, a flying fox. Exercise machines offer a good pre-piste workout but I content myself with wandering concrete paths through the gardens on the brink of their summer blooms.
Melana Bradley is another one who has worked modern-day magic to pull beauty out of this land. Her gardens - a few kilometres from Taumarunui and open to the public - are the manifestation of decades of love, turning raw paddocks into a wedding venue of picturesque lawns, natural amphitheatres, structured flower beds and stories personal to her and her family. She laughs as she recounts her mother-in-law’s horror when the newly married Bradley did not know the difference between an annual and a perennial: these days the mother-in-law shows her friends around Bradley’s very own garden of Eden.
The New Zealand Army utilised the extreme temperatures and diverse terrain of Ruapehu District to prepare soldiers for war. Photo / Visit Ruapehu
Where some saw the lucrative bounty of rich soil, the New Zealand Army saw extreme temperatures and a terrain perfect to prepare soldiers for arenas of war. Young men seeking adventure once found the Army: their exploits are memorialised and explained in Waiouru’s National Army Museum. I am lucky enough to meet the knowledgable, enthusiastic Daniel Tizzard-Close, a repository of New Zealand’s military history. He explains the Tears of Greenstone installation: water flows down walls as a grim voice recites of the names of every soldier who died defending these shores – it takes two and a half weeks to list the lost. Learn how the flintlock rifle contributed to the English language - Google the etymology of “flash in the pan” – and discover the effect of the Boer War on New Zealand’s sense of nationhood.
But the most magic moment of my days on the Adventure Highway comes as I stand on a bridge in Ōwhango, only a few metres off State Highway 4. After a hike through the Ōhinetonga Scenic Reserve, across the still darkness of a shallow wetland, I finally see one of the rarest birds on the planet. Standing on a rock in the river is a native whio, one of only 2500 left in the world.
View the volcanic triumvirate of Ngauruhoe, Tongariro, and Ruapehu in the curve of SH4’s adventure highway. Photo / Visit Ruapehu
And that duck isn’t the only rare sight to be had on the Adventure Highway: here be dinosaurs.
Ian and Sarah Moore are dinosaur enthusiasts who must have an interesting relationship with their postie who delivers bones to their Raetihi Dinosaur Museum from all around the world.
Raetihi’s main street is pretty lined with heritage buildings that once bustled when the village was a key stop on the railway a century ago – the town is home to the oldest cinema in the Southern Hemisphere and a magnificent Rātana Church on a knoll at the entrance to the town. The Moores have filled a beautiful 1922 heritage building with dinosaur skeletons and reconstructions, including fossils found right here in New Zealand. It’s like stepping into a time warp: you expect a half-hour visit but it will quickly turn into more than an hour under Ian’s passionate guidance. He has used his connections from his previous career in television to obtain artefacts from the Jurassic Park movies and part of the display honours amateur Kiwi paleontologist Joan Wiffen, credited with discovering the first dinosaur bones in New Zealand.
Ian Moore at Dinosaur Museum, Raetihi. Photo / Bevan Conley
The curve of SH4′s adventure highway embraces the volcanic triumvirate of Ngauruhoe, Tongariro and Ruapehu and the almost countless walking options that crisscross their slopes. The season is about to get under way for the deservedly world-famous Tongariro Crossing but there are easily accessible walks almost year-round to waterfalls and beauty spots. I join Adrift Tongariro for a sunset stroll through lowland tussock to the Taranaki Falls, which plunge 20 metres from a cliff of volcanic rock. My guide has just returned from rescuing street-shoe-wearing walkers on the nearby mountain, and it’s a good reminder that although these treks are safely do-able – my daughter did the Tongariro at the age of 9 – to take the very necessary precautions for the terrain and against the sometimes rapidly changing weather conditions.
Change is a defining characteristic of the adventure-filled Ruapehu district: and recording it all are the artists. Some of New Zealand’s most iconic artworks depict the incredible landscapes of its mountains, of the Whanganui River that begins as a stream here on its way to the sea. And as the winds of economic and climate change continue to mould the district, so too do the people recording it all via paint, pottery and other mediums. One of the district’s newest attractions highlights 24 artists on an art trail of events, exhibitions and classes.
Because, as that poem on the bathroom wall says: “This is a country / beyond the means of time to a stranger / to know it you are born.”
