The
Gentle Annie Road - a 140 km Heritage Trail - is a part gravel
road between Taihape and Napier. I heard about this route
several years ago but never had an opportunity or reason to use
this road. But a visit to our Volvo friend in Hastings was the
right opportunity.
From where we live in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty the main
route to Hawke's Bay is via Rotorua and Taupo, however we took a much quieter route over the Kaimai ranges,
then via Putaruru,
the timber town of Tokoroa, Mangakino (power station), the west
side of Lake Taupo, where one can drive at speeds of 100km/h to Turangi on
the south side of the Lake. Then onto State Highway 1, named the
Dessert Road with fantastic views of Mt.Tongariro and the snow
capped (in Summer !) Mt.Ruapahu to Waiouru. The Dessert Road is
a notorious road, often closed in Winter because of ice and
snow. About 20kms past Waiouru we follow the sign
"Napier" and turn off SH1 onto the small settlement of
Moawhanga.
|
Have a
rest
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Swimming holes
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Camping
area
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Dust !
|
The first part of the road is tar-sealed and very good, the
country is mainly sheep- and cattle farms - really large farms.
The road is now one of a network of Heritage Trails which
are sponsored by the New Zealand Visitor Network and the local
District Councils. There is only 40kms of gravel road left,
which is in good condition and one can travel at 70km/h on the
main straights without any problem, however on the much
narrower up- and downhill sections one has to take care and
drive a lot slower. This route is well endowed with camping,
picnic, swimming and fishing spots and provides access to
southern areas of the Kaweka Forest Park. At this time of the
year, the hills were covered in flowering Manuka. The main
Kaweka Range rises to 1,724 metres.
The
route started around the 1500s as a Maori Trail from the centre
of North Island to Hawke's Bay on the East Coast. The landscape
has been modified by farming activities. In the late 1800s most
of the land was burned, then grazed by Merino sheep. By the 1870s the Inland had vast Stations with Merino sheep and
transport was a tremendous undertaking - typical stations could
be sheering up to 75,000 sheep and packing the wool over the
ranges on strings of pack horses to the port of Napier. The
strings were hundreds strong with one man to each string of ten.
Mules were also used and one in five animals carried provisions
and fodder for the trip. Each pack animal carried 200 pounds (91
kg) and riding ahead were hunters with dogs providing fresh
food.
Gravel Road |
Manuka |
Flowering Manuka
|
Te Mata Peak |
It
was a dangerous job and it was not unknown for animals to lose
they footing on the narrow rocky path over the precipitous
"Gentle Annie" and plunge to their end in the
Ngaruuroro Gorge a hundred metres below. Panic could easily
spread with the rest of the team following. They eventually
returned with mail and supplies. Mc.Donalds Hotel at Kuripapango
(near the Camping areas) was an important stopping place for
packhorse trains and bullock wagons, it was also a fashionable
holiday retreat for Hawke's Bay people, however the Hotel burnt
down in 1901 and was never rebuilt. Little remains of the Hotel
today. This used to be the busiest and
longest trail in New Zealand and remained so until the railway
was built in the early 1900s.
If you think the central North Island is dry in the Summer you
are in for a big surprise when approaching Hawke's Bay. The
views are great with the Bay in the background but everything
you see is brown and dry, apart from the pine trees, scattered
around the landscape, again real sheep country here. On the
plains plenty of vineyards and orchards (apples, apricots, plums
and peaches) There is a lot to see in Hawke's Bay; Napier with
all the Art Deco buildings and Hastings a city supporting the
farming and orchard communities. We took the drive up to Te Mata
Peak at Havelock North, just east of Hastings. Fantastic views
of the Bay and the ranges, also a prime spot for parasailing.
The next day, after visiting our Volvo Friend in Hastings, we
drove back via the main road, SH5, to Taupo, Rotorua and took
the back road from Ngongotaha to Tauranga. This road is becoming
a popular "shortcut" and only 4 kms of remains to be
sealed and some very drastic realignment is underway right now.
All in all a very interesting weekend in our reliable Amazon, we
travelled 600 miles and the only "problem" we had was
that the cooling water temperature was getting a bit high when
we were stuck behind a slow cattle truck on a long winding
climb, so I had to use my emergency electric cooling fan for a
while to keep the temperature under control, but when we finally
passed the truck we were flying again and the temperature was
back to normal.
Jim Hekker
Webmaster
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