On The Train Again

Friday 8 December

Today dawned overcast and when we stepped out of the hotel, we realized the temperature had dropped a few degrees – it was positively cool. We were lucky to have seen Rotorua in the sun yesterday – at its best.

We traveled first to Taupo, through pine forests and areas of undulating hills with cattle and sheep in abundance – excellent grazing country. This area in the 1920’s was a research area to find out which trees would grow best and in the 1930’s the forestry department used unemployed labour to plant millions of trees – mostly pines. The first settlers had brought with them indigenous European trees, such as oak, sycamore, pines and gorse, but the pine trees seemed to grow quickest and were good for making furniture and fences. Later they tried growing the huge American redwood trees. In their native land they take a hundred years or more to reach maturity and the wood is excellent for building and crafting. Here they thrive in the good soils and rainfall and are mature between twenty-five and thirty years after planting – but – there is always a but – the resulting wood is useless – it is soft and spongy as it has grown too quickly. Pine plantations were planted and could be harvested after about twenty five years. New seedlings are planted between the trees before they are cut down, so that they will grow to replace the cut timber. After about six or seven years these are thinned out and the saplings used for fencing for vineyards. Many farmers, since losing their subsidies in the 1980s are abandoning sheep and dairy farming in favour of timber farms, which can see good profits over a twenty five to thirty year cycle, with very little labour required, once the ground is prepared and the trees planted, until harvest.

Taupo is a large town on a lake formed some 26 million years ago, by a volcanic eruption. There was another eruption here in the 1920’s which was recorded by both an Italian and a Chinese man in their diaries, as the ash deposits could be seen in the sky all those thousands of miles away. The town here is much more modern than most we have seen, catering for a large tourist trade on the lake – fishing, yachting, swimming, and boat racing attracting many visitors throughout the year. We had mid morning drinks in another high standard café, that offered a great range of snacky foods and drinks.

Back on the coach we went to Haku Falls where the River Waitaupo is confined by a band of resistant rock through a channel from 100 metres wide and 4 metres deep to 15 metres wide and 10 metres deep – the result is a great rushing torrent of turquoise and white water gushing out into the wider stream at a rate of between 160 cubic metres – 270 cubic metres per second, depending on the season – it made you realize just how powerful water can be. This stop was just a ten-minute photo stop, as we had to be at Taumarunui Station by midday to catch the train to Wellington. On the way we passed a geo-thermal power station where bores are made deep into the earth to take the steam from underground to the power station. Water from the river cools the steam and creates a vacuum which spins the turbines to create electricity. The resulting hot steam from the process is reintroduced into the earth’s surface at the side of the plant. This renewable energy source now has two fields and produces 9% of New Zealand’s electricity generation.

The Taumarunui National Park was only the second National Park in the world, donated by Chief Ohaori in 1887. He saw the increasing number of Europeans battling for more and more land with other tribal leaders, wanting to claim sacred mountains for their own. He was one of the first tribal chiefs to seek a peaceful settlement with the white men. This area is now a World Heritage site, with 500 different types of vegetation including 36 varieties of orchid, many only found in this region.

We arrived at the station in plenty of time to catch the train – an electric engine for the first part of the journey, and diesel from Palmerston North. There were only eight of us from our tour group traveling by train (the rest traveling to Wellington by coach), and we had a group of reserved seats clustered in the middle of one carriage – there were only three carriages today and half of one of those was taken up by the buffet car – they put more carriages on the train according to the number of tickets sold. At present the train only runs three days a week (luckily today was one of those), although in a couple of weeks it will return to a daily schedule. Because the line was making a loss, the railway company decided to withdraw the service altogether, but this caused great uproar by the people of both Auckland and Wellington, so they have operated a limited service for six months while they decided what to do. We should have traveled by train from Auckland to Rotorua, but this part of the service is still not running.

The weather had worsened throughout the morning and as we boarded the train, the rain arrived making the first part of the journey very wet. People had fought to save this railway because of the remarkable engineering feat in building the track up the side of a very steep mountain – if it went straight up, it would have needed to rise 200 metres in 5 kms. As it was, a series of three horseshoe bends, two tunnels and a full circle of track – the only train in New Zealand to cross over its own track – was planned by R W Holmes, as he surveyed the area between 1898 and 1908 through dense native forest. His solution was to raise the track 1 metre in every 52 metres over the required 11.5 kms to reach the top of the plateau, and even today, engineers are full of praise for the construction. This part of the track became known as the Raurimu Spiral, and provided the key opening to the central route through North Island and access to the valuable timber – its nearly as good as one of the complicated tracks I built for Adam in our lounge!

The first stop was at Wangipino Station in the heart of the National Park and many day-trippers got off the train, presumably intending to walk and explore, but it was raining very hard by this time, and it discouraged us from even getting off the train for a walk round. We stopped here for three-quarters of an hour, before continuing our journey over the steep sides of mountains, across viaducts and bridges, through rolling countryside – an artist’s palette of greens - with lots of cows and sheep (we could identify some of the different varieties now). The viewing area of the train was in the rear of the last coach – an area with seating around the edge and all round viewing windows – and we adjourned here for the next hour or so to watch the scenery. The whole journey would take over seven hours and we had a chance to exchange gossip and chat with our fellow passengers – Andrew and Jennifer (going to open a railway ride in the country north of Melbourne), Elaine and Dick (who run a bed and breakfast in Cumbria, about 50 miles from Carlisle, and Pauline and John (both retired from Felixstowe – Pauline has to eat and drink regularly, so paid numerous visits to the buffet car so kept us all well fed and watered.

At Palmerston North our dinner was brought aboard – not quite a 5*AA gourmet meal, more airline meal - described as “possum stew” with mash, beans and carrots. The guard brought round a tray of strawberry custard tarts and bananas for dessert, with a choice of tea or coffee. Substantial, if basic – I didn’t see too many of the other passengers in the carriage licking their lips and drooling over our repast. By the time we had eaten we were into the outer suburbs of Wellington. The tracks followed the coastline here and we could see lots of high rises at the end of the bay, while passing through light industrial areas, with fishing boats moored just off shore. We drew into Wellington Station right on time at 19.30, and Alan and Darryl were there to meet us – which was fortunate as it was just starting to drizzle again. Straightaway we noticed the drop in temperature – it was like a cold damp spring evening at home – just as well I was wearing my fleecy today - but I think we will need to find even warmer clothes over the next few days. We went directly to the hotel, and as it was now dark and wet and cold, decided to stay in and try and send a few emails. Very frustratingly we couldn’t get a connection to any provider, never mind an internet site – the first night for ages that we have an hour or so to send some messages – sod’s law!. So we abandoned the Thai Shite and made for the hotel bar – a very small dismal area, to one side of the restaurant that looked, and felt, like an afterthought. It was so characterless that we stayed only for one drink and decided to have an earlyish night.

This will be another city we blow in and out of very quickly – should manage a short tour before we leave tomorrow lunchtime,– but from the small bit we have seen, it seems very like any English city, with lots of high rise hotels, office blocks and department stores and very few houses. We did see a couple of their electric trams, but these only run from Monday to Friday, till about 20.00 to serve those commuting to work. Most of the shops were displaying Christmas decorations – the most we have seen so far - and being Friday night, there were quite a few people taking advantage of late night shopping. We have seen lots of Maori culture on North Island, and the scenery has been rolling green fields and forests, similar to home, only on a bigger scale, but not dramatic. Tomorrow we are off to what I think will be the ‘real’ New Zealand – South Island – with its spectacular scenery and four more train rides to look forward to.