New Zealand April 27th - Railcarting

Another beautiful day dawned for us today, and we were very glad, because we had already booked in to go railcarting. This would not be fun in wet or cold weather.

We didn't have a lot of spare time, but we tried our luck with a couple of scenic lookouts on the way to Taumarunui,  where the trip starts from.   We have learned on this trip that a scenic lookout in NZ may or may not have a scenic view. We lucked out on one today with some spectacular views over the area below once we climbed the steps and viewing tower. At the other we could  not see the view because of the trees thickly obscuring it.

The drive to Tuamarunui is only 50 km,  but takes close to an hour due to the winding road. 

We still arrived with enough time to get some lunch and to sit in the main street and get a bit of a feel for this country town, which is somewhat reduced in size from its heyday, when it was a thriving logging centre. 

The main train line still passes through town, and this clock is a novel nod to the part that the railway has had in the life of the town. The rail carts run on a side line, no longer used by the rail services. There are a number of tourist attractions somewhat like it in NZ, ,making use of the disused lines.  Apparently they have also converted some of them to bike tracks as we have in SA. 

Forgotten world is the name of the business,  but also the name used for the area, which the locals seem to think was neglected and forgotten by the rest of the country for many years.  Now they are making a name of it. 

They use converted golf buggies (made in Augusta- home of the US Open). Originally they used them with tyres, but now they have plastic wheels made to fit the rails which work well, except in very wet weather. 

There is also a pedal option, but we had opted for the petrol powered carts.  Ours was a bit sick, and would go full power (about 20km/hr) or not at all. So that was a bit frustrating for someone who is usually such a smooth driver as Trev is. It also decided to backfire (sometimes inside the tunnel) which was a bit scary when not expected.  

Drops caught on a spiderweb on the side of the track

Could not resist trying to capture the contrast of bright delicate plant against hard railway rocks.

The trip covered 32 km and 5 tunnels (the longest being 1.5km long , and very cold). Some of the tunnels are made of cement and the local rock, but later they had no rock to use, and used local clay to make bricks.  Those tunnels are quite beautiful in their own way.  How on earth did they manage to dig tunnels from both ends and meet in the middle accurately so long ago???

Matiere was the turn around point for us.  Time to stop and have a cuppa and snack, and to wonder how a tiny spot that seems to have only about 8 rundown homes and no remaining businesses except the local club manages to field 2 netball teams and maintain a town hall so well. Obviously town spirit runs deep and people pull together here as they do in many of our country towns in SA.

I had never seen a turntable like this before.  Pick it up from the side of the track, fit it together on the rails, drive on, manually turn the cart around, and you are ready to head in the other direction. Very basic. Very practical.

Turning a cart

One of the locals

View of the track

Some of the buildings are getting a bit run down. 

This bird graces the main street in Taumarunui 

We have been observing the roadworks here with wonder while we have been driving around. Today was no different. Each sign needs at least one cone to make sure you pay attention. If there is a bit of a slip spilling on to the road you may find a cone has been placed there by someone (presumably a road worker) when it seriously appears that they could have just picked up a shovel and got it off of the road in the space of a minute or two.

New Zealanders also seem to have a strong belief in using a LOT of cones to indicate where to drive. Here is an example we spotted today. Apologies for photos taken through car windscreen.

Having said all that, we also came around a bend to find two road workers filling a pothole with no signs , cones or warning at all!!

We have been incredibly fortunate with the weather in the last week or so.
Tomorrow we head North again , with only a couple more days in NZ.  It feels as though we are starting to head for home.