All about Ohakune (11 Feb)
I really, really should update this blog more often! Forgive me for I have sinned, it’s been a week since my last update and all that… but there’s SO much to do here!! Well, I guess I’ll just have to dig deep into my memory banks and see what I can come up with. Accuracy is not guaranteed, but excitement is, as we cycle up the Old Coach Road, and wander across Ohakune some more.
As I wrote in my previous update, Ohakune is mostly a ski resort with a big carrot at one end. If it rains, here really is not much to do here apart from the excellent lunch place, the mediocre burger bar and the video library of the hostel that our Danish (?) housemate was all too eager to check out. Of course, it rained on this particular day, and we still have until 4:30pm to go until the one (and only) bus to Wellington would be whisking us back to civilisation. So we did what every sensible Dutch person would do: we rented some fancy mountain bikes and went off to explore the one short bike track in the area, a 3hr return trip aptly called The Old Coach Road.
The name is apt, of course, because it once WAS part of the coach road traversing the North Island. And let me say right off the bat: man do I feel sorry for the horses all those years ago! Going up and down this supposedly historically correct track is no picknick, even if, as the touristy signs tell us, the actual road (mostly grass and gravel these days) was modelled after the Roman system which, in a nutshell, featured two “rails” to keep the carriage on the right track. The advantage for the passengers, however, was that they were sitting dry (albeit uncomfortable is the records are to be believed) and could rely on horse power to be drawn across the hill. We went up there, in the gradually increasing rain, with the Tongariro Crossing still in our legs, and boy did we get wet.
By “we” I mean of course “I”. Anne, the more experienced trapper of us two, had all kinds of fancy outdoors clothes, whereas I went up in my clean white shirt and cotton shorts. Score one for the city slickers: I did make it up to the end of the track, a beautiful old railway bridge spanning a beautiful deep gorge. But, alas, my poor white shirt did not make it through the muddy descent unscathed, and had to be soaked in lukewarm water immediately afterwards to rescue what was left of it. The pictures, I think, tell their own story (once I get around to posting them). But it was an exciting bike ride and it sure did pass the time!!
Speaking of time, excitement, and pictures, the DoC of Ohakune had really gone out of their way to make the trail interesting for tourists willing to learn something. Apart from the factoid about the retro-style Roman road built by the New Zealand settlers, we learnt about conflicts with Maori, how The Bridge was built, and how the frontier of New Zealand extended ever southwards. Also, there were some more fascinating insights in village life on that very frontier, from letters written by labourers, to a picture of the woman who practically ran Ohakune in the late 1800s. All that was on these tourist signs along the way, and I was smitten. Smitten with the New Zealand frontier, which seemed to me at first glance a somewhat more organised and less violent version of the Western frontier in the USA, but not by much. Additionally, that’s when it dawned on me that much of Ohakune, as well as some of the other villages we had driven through, actually did look like the towns of the Old West that we know from Leone, Ford, Eastwood, etc. I resolved then and there that I would keep my eyes peeled for more informations on New Zealand in the 19th century.
But I digress (which is, of course, what makes this blog so fascinating to read!). After we had gotten back, taken a shower, sort-of-cleaned my white shirt, and had some lunch, we resolved to visit every store in town. I almost bought a ukulele. I bought the first (of many) postcards (and one stamp). I looked for a book on New Zealand frontier history – halfheartedly at first. Anne almost bought a shirt. But in the end, it turned out that Ohakune was just that: a ski resort with a supermarket and a nice YHA hostel. And one bus stop, which we used to get back to Wellington, looking back on some memorable days, and looking forward to a nice boat ride to the South Island.
But that’s a story for another time…