Susan's visit - The Whanganui River Road

In Wanganui, Seán and I took a look at the map to see where to go the next day. We had been planning on going skiing the next day, but it was going to be a Sunday and, as it was in the middle of the school holidays, we decided it would probably be better to go skiing on Monday instead as the slopes might be a bit quieter. We didn’t have far to travel to the slopes, so Seán suggested we go down the Wanganui River Road, though the next day he protested that I had misinterpreted him… I had wondered why he was suggesting going down such a long unsealed road!

Either way, we set off on Sunday morning and started going down that road. There were great views with the river on one side of us some distance down, and great cliffs on the other side. Also, the road started off as sealed so it was all going quite well until we came around a corner and saw a slip in front of us. With all the recent rain bits of the cliffs had come loose and slipped down onto the road. In this case two pretty big rocks had fallen down and were perfectly placed in the road just far enough apart that you couldn’t get past them. As the surface of the road wasn’t good enough to hit the brakes Seán opted to go around them on the side of the road, which was very muddy but fine until all the wheels left the hard surface and we just glided slowly over until we came to a gentle stop against the cliff. Thankfully it was of a similarly slippy muddy surface and did no damage to the van, other than getting it very dirty!

As the van was stuck in the mud, we got out and started trying to work out how to get it out again. We tried pushing, but the pushers couldn’t get purchase on the mud with their feet to get a decent effort in. Then we tried putting mats at the tyres to give them something to grip on, together with some strong grasses we cut out. We were just about to try that combination when a 4WD truck arrived around the corner! With next to no effort the van was toed back onto the road and we were off within ten minutes of arriving there. Given that this is a back country road we were pretty pleased with that result!

After that excitement we drove on a little bit until we arrived at the end of the Atene Skyline walking track so we put our boots on and set off up the hill with our cameras. The track started going through woodland and was beautiful and sheltered. However, soon enough we hit some nasty steps and then a whole lot of mud. We made it up the hill to a good viewpoint in about half an hour though and made the most of it before heading back down. I was taking my time and being careful and was quite glad I was doing so when I heard a shriek behind me that was Susan almost falling over in the mud on the way down! Though she didn’t fall all the way she ended up with very muddy trousers! After that adventure we decided it was lunchtime so parked up at the side of the road and made ourselves tea (or coffee for Susan, she doesn’t do tea! Silly!) and sandwiches and dried out a bit in the sun.

The slips weren’t done with us yet though. As we continued down the road (which turned out to be sealed for a lot of the way, but still with some impressively potholed dirt sections) we encountered a few muddy slips that we could just drive carefully through, a tree that we had to get out and break some branches off so the high roofed van could get through, and another tree trunk that had been sawn off at the spot where you could just get past it and keep your tyres on the road. The most impressive was the last one though. We had driven over 50km down this road and were nearly at the end of it when we came around a corner and saw a massive slip that had covered a large section of the road with a couple of feet deep of mud. There were a couple of diggers working there and a big truck set up on the other side. We couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that we’d come so far and now it looked like we’d have to go back past all those other slips again! However, one of the workers told us to carry on and drive through on the basis that there was sealed road underneath all that mud, so we drove on thinking that at least there was enough machinery there to pull us out if we got stuck this time! By some miracle we actually made it through and got to the end of that road in one piece, even if the van and the three of us were all pretty muddy! It took two goes at washing the van before it started looking respectable again!

Back on proper roads again we drove to Okahune in the hopes of getting somewhere to stay there for the night near the ski slopes. Everywhere in our budget range was booked out so we carried on to Whakapapa and got checked into hostel type accommodation there where we had a tasty dinner and laughed at our day’s mini adventures!