Lodge makes dream a reality

Joe Adams gets to enjoy paradise every day.
His Bridge to Nowhere Lodge on Ramanui Station, opposite Tieke, is upriver from Pipiriki and on the western bank of the Whanganui River.
The lodge takes its name from the bridge, another 30 minutes by jetboat further upriver deeper into the Whanganui National Park.
Mr Adams grew up in Ohakune but spent a lot of time as a young boy on Ramanui which was then owned by his uncle Jim Wilcox.
"It took us three days to get from Ohakune to Ramanui in Uncle Jim's Model T and then we went on horseback."
The small posse rode the horses to the Whanganui where they camped on the riverbank.
He became a shearer and went shearing in the UK for six months, but he always came back to the Mangapurua and Mangatiti.
"This is home. I love it here and I love sharing it with everybody."
Mr Adams said he was 14 years old when he first began to dream about buying Ramanui.
It was a dream that remained with him over the years until the land came up for sale 10 years ago. Mr Adams bought the upriver land from Ken and Raewyn Haworth.
On his return from overseas Mr Adams bought an old jetboat and went up the Whanganui to go hunting.
He went home and saw on the wall in a real estate office that Ramanui was for sale.
But he was told by the agent that: "you would not be interested in that ... you would need a boat ... It's a long way away and you would not want to live up there".
Today Mr Adams runs the Bridge to Nowhere jet boat tours from Pipiriki to Mangapurua.
The domestic and international tourists alight and walk 40 minutes along the DoC-maintained track to the bridge where Mr Adams tells them about the men who returned from the war and went into the area to farm. In 1943 their leases were cancelled and they walked off the land now known as the Valley of Abandoned Dreams.
On his day off Mr Adams takes his dogs out for a pig hunt - a 25km walk in the bush.
"Up here time is irrelevant," he says, unless he has people to pick up.
The lodge is a family affair with daughter Libby cooking for guests, watched over by 6-month-old Bella.
Son Ben and partner Rebecca run the Whanganui River Canoes from the Raetihi Holiday Park which connects with the lodge tours.
"My kids are my mates," says Mr Adams as he prepares for another tour group and a Whanganui River experience.