I had some time off before Xmas and put this to good use by jumping on
the motorbike and heading off to Auckland to see a friend.
The Forgotten Highway as its name suggests is a little used road that runs for
150km from Stratford to Taumarunui through rugged and sparsely populated
country. In the biking world the road has something of a mythical reputation
and was definitely on the must do list.
I decided to travel up to Auckland via the Forgotten Highway even though
this meant adding a good 300km onto what was already a long trip. To break up
the journey I decided to stay the night at the highways one and only village,
Whangamomona.
After and uneventful enough journey I finally reached Stratford and
turned onto the Forgotten Highway and set off on the 63km to Whangamomona. This
section of the road had more traffic than I thought it would but was well
surfaced, tight and twisty and passed over a couple of saddles before finally
arriving at the nights stop. I stayed at the rather quaint and old fashioned
Whangamomona Hotel which was all creaking floorboards and I am sure one or two
ghosts as well – splendid stuff.
As is the way in rural New Zealand the hotel also serves as the pub and
is the focal point of the village. As luck would have it the local Xmas parade
started not long after I arrived so I sat outside had a few beers, some fish
and chips and took in the action.
The next day I set off early, as I still had to complete the Forgotten
Highway and even after that still had a long way to go to Auckland.
This next section is where the serious business started as it became
narrower and more demanding including a fairly long single lane tunnel. After
about 20 minutes the tarmac stopped and the road became unsealed for the next
10km or so. I am emphatically not an off-road rider, particularly when on a
sports bike, so this was real buttock clenching stuff. The first few hundred
meters were the worst as the gravel seemed to be particularly deep with the
bike squirming and sliding all over the place. I almost turned back at this
point but decided having come this far, to tough it out. After a while I sort
of got a rhythm going, relaxed a bit and got through this section just fine. The reward after
the gravel was the best riding of the trip. The scenery was great, the road was
lovely and twisty but not too tight and was great fun with the proviso the
speed was kept down to sensible levels (there were a fair number of rocks on
the road, not to mention cow poo). I didn’t see a single car on this entire
section.
The rest of the ride was
much less exciting and I eventually made it up to Auckland.
Auckland is not exactly my
favourite city but it was on its best behaviour when I was there. The weather
was lovely and I had a very chilled out time with my friend and her family.
I needed to get back to
Wellington in a hurry so it was the boring but fast SH1 for me. Boring it certainly
was, but not without incident as I nearly got knocked off, got nicked for
speeding (109km/hr on the Desert Road - oh well) and left my tank bag behind! A nice trip all the same.
Mt Taranaki. This was taken not long before I turned onto the Forgotten Highway.
The hotel.
Me outside the hotel.
The single lane tunnel. The gravel started not long after this.
This was a nice little scenic reserve just after the gravel section.
