We finally finished all our jobs at Jenny’s house this morning so we set off for Napier. As the Manawatu Gorge is permanently closed at the moment we faced having to go by the Saddle Road. To get to the Saddle Road we had to go south to Palmerston North and then on to Ashurst. The benefit of doing this was that Bruce would get to see the Apiti Wind farm which would leave the Te Uku wind farm in its back draft.
However, once we got to Ashurst (86kms later) we found that the Saddle Road was also closed and there was a new detour in place. We decided that this was all becoming too hard as there was no information about the route of the detour and what the roads were like, so we rang the people we were supposed to be visiting and canceled that part of the adventure. However, this became a new adventure of its own as we made our way up country, following the Rangitikei River, towards today’s destination of Taupo.
However, Ashurst had some great views of the wind farm although we did not get as close to it as we would have liked seeing as we were not going on the Saddle Road. The day was very calm so all but one of the wind generators were not moving at all. Ashurst had a viewing platform that gave a lot of information about the wind farm, but also had some lovely murals,
We set the GPS for Taihape and it took us through some small back country roads that were in very good condition, with the added bonus of some spectacular scenery such as the photo above and below:
Along the road we also found another potential do up – the house for me and the truck for Bruce!
The road ran along the eastern banks of the Rangitikei River until just before Mangaweka. Just before the township of Mangaweka, there was a scenic route labeled so of course Bruce had to go and see what was down there. There was a camp down the road a way. As the road further on led on over a narrow bridge that did not look great for motorhomes so we decided to pull in to the camp for a look. There were tracks that led right down to the river, and that gave magnificent views of the towering cliffs along the other side of the river.
We were sure this camp would be very popular in the summer. The dogs enjoyed their little outing, so it was back to the truck to continue northwards. This was the first time that we were struck by how close to the edge of the cliffs the town of Mangaweka was, and those cliffs are very unstable. Time will tell.
We continued north along SH 1, through Taihape and then onto the Desert Road. It was dusk by this time, and the road conditions varied immensely. From this:
to this:
There were still lots of small patches of snow at the sides of the road, and the vehicle computer told us it was only 1 degree outside. We stopped for a quick meal at Turangi and then did the final punch through to the NZMCA Park at Taupo. We were obviously not the only ones who thought it would be a good place to park as there were lots of campers here, but still plenty of room, so we found our park and set ourselves up for the night.
Away From Home NZ 