November 14 - Mokau to Taumaranui

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After leaving Mokau we decided to head in the direction of Turangi at the south tip of Lake Taupo, but only made it as far as Taumaranui. Rather than take one of the big red lines on the map, or even the yellow ones, we opted for the white ones. This took us over the mountains and through some beautiful valleys.

The trouble with NZ maps is even though they try to color-code their roads to differentiate between them, you don’t always know what you’re getting into. In this case we turned off the main highway onto a smaller “two lane” paved road. After a few miles it turned into a “two lane” gravel road, with a BIG sign that said that log trucks use this road.

After a few more miles, and discussions regarding my questionable decision making capabilities, the road turned into a “two lane” dirt road. It was bad enough having to worry about running into a log truck, without the extra concern about going straight over the side into ravines hundreds of feet deep. The hillside went straight up on one side and straight down (our side) on the other. Another thing to factor into the equation is the fact that the speed limit on the road was 100 kph. The Kiwis prefer not to leave anything on the table when it comes to speed limits. I was comfortable with about 45 kph.

Of course the inevitable had to happen and as we were going around a corner (like there’s any other kind of road) a log truck comes barreling down. As luck would have it, there was a pull-out on our side at that exact moment that we could dive into, because he never touched the brakes. There is no possible way that a log truck and anything else could pass on that road.

Near the top of the “pass” there was a display of political commentary that we just could not pass up. It seems that the Kiwis are about as enthusiastic about their political system as we are.

Once we were down the other side and going along the pasture land, we came around a corner (like there’s any other kind of road) and there was a turbine ag-plane skimming the tree tops and heading around the corner of a hill. I jumped out with my camera and got a couple shots of him; then he disappeared.

I got back on the road and a few seconds later he pops out from behind the trees again and drops another load and disappears. I got some more pictures.

About another two miles down the road we came across another log truck. This one was parked on the side of the road. The driver was watching the “air show”. We got out of the car and he hollers “Get over here where you can see something”. He was sitting on a hill right at the edge of the crop duster’s “runway”. This runway had about 350 feet of level ground then went up at about a 45 degree angle for another 500 – 600 feet, then flattened on top where a big truck had a hopper kind of crane that would dump loads into the plane. The pilot would then turn around and lumber down the hill balls-to-the-wall. I don’t know how much over-gross he was, but lucky for him the “departure” end of the runway was probably 50 feet up. When he hit the end of the runway he would be skimming the brush for a good 300 yards where he would turn and disappear behind the trees. From the time that he would touch down till the time he was on the roll again was less than one minute.