A Whanganui base gave David Coxon the opportunity to explore some more remote areas of the country.
Travelling again with Ashley and Gillian, the first part of our trip was a Saturday afternoon run up from Wellington to our base for the next two nights at the very pleasant Selahmoor Cottage AirBnB just out of Whanganui.
This was a very tame run up the main road, although we did take the opportunity to detour to Tangimoana and drive a little way down the beach for a peaceful afternoon coffee break. From Whanganui our plan was to do a longer trip to visit the Bridge to Somewhere on the Sunday and a shorter trip into the ranges on the Monday before heading home on Monday afternoon. However things did not quite go as planned.
Our visit to the Bridge to Somewhere started with a quite long run up to Stratford and morning coffee before a short run up the Forgotten World Highway (SH43) turning off into more remote country just past Douglas.
We followed a lower class sealed road which ran through green and pleasant farmland with the mostly cloudy conditions creating spotlights of sunshine marching across the hills and valleys.
Twenty years in the making
For me this was the start of a trip twenty years in the making as I had been wanting to visit the Bridge to Somewhere ever since I visited its twin, the Bridge to Nowhere, as part of a canoe trip down the Wanganui River in the late '90s.
At Makahu we left the sealed road we were following, which looped back to SH43, to follow an unsealed No Exit road we hoped would lead to the Bridge to Somewhere. Except for some sections of quite bad corrugations, this was a reasonably well maintained and easy road that worked its way up the valleys, following the Mangaehu Stream through a scenic mix of farmland, some stands of pine and native bush.
As we started climbing to the ridge the fence on both sides of the road was plastered with “Keep Out – No Hunting” signs about every 50m for several kilometres. It seemed a bit over-kill, but I didn’t think too much about it at the time as we were not planning to leave the road.
Dropping down the other side of the ridge we passed through an open gate where the road continued through a station and out through a closed gate, finally coming to an intersection. We decided to follow the left fork as it was the signposted road and, according to our maps, came to an end after only a kilometre or so.
It was only about five minutes later that we came to an open area at the signpost for Aotuhuia Station. Here we also found the Bridge to Somewhere and a road that Ashley had heard about that might be a shortcut back to Whangamomona. Time for lunch and a bit of an explore.
Over lunch we decided that despite what Ashley had been told by the pub owner at Whangamomona about it being a viable drive, we would not try the route to Whangamomona.
Not suitable
As well as being gated (although not locked) and clearly signposted as not being suitable for motorised vehicles, the rough map on the information sign indicated that the route included a footbridge.
We agreed this was not worth considering unless we could get confirmation of the route’s viability from someone with current local knowledge.
We did, however, realise that if we followed the road over the Bridge to Somewhere to the end of the road we would be at ‘Somewhere’, an achievement in its own right. With this decided, we finished lunch, took some celebratory photos at the start of the Bridge to Somewhere then drove the last few kilometres to the gate where the drivable road ended and took some photos of us parked at Somewhere.
Physically the road continued as a walking track following the original wagon route, to the Whanganui River, crossing the Bridge to Nowhere on the way. For us, however, it was time to turn around and start heading back to Makahu.
As we dropped back down from the ridge, passing all the ‘Keep Out’ signs I saw a nice view down the valley and backed up to get few photos. I was just finishing up when I got a call on the radio from Ashley warning me of a fast-moving ute approaching.
To my surprise the driver slid to a stop beside me wanting to know why I had stopped, and was everything alright. Although he was very pleasant, I soon gathered that he had come from the house at the bottom of the valley when he saw I had backed up to park, mainly to make sure we were not going to trespass or take pot shots at his pig up on the hill.
Sign of the times
He obviously took his privacy very seriously and apparently trespassing hunters were a real problem for him, hence all the signs. I suspect that if I had been holding a gun rather than a camera, things would have turned out a lot less pleasantly than they did.
Not far from Makahu we had another unplanned stop when Ashley reported a squeal coming from the front somewhere. I went back to help him locate the problem but as usually happens, it stopped as soon as we tried to find it. All we could do was carry on carefully. Back at Makahu we continued our original loop, followed the signposted route back to Stratford via Strathmore on SH43.
Finally reaching Whanganui, Ashley advised that the squeal was still occurring intermittently, so we took advantage of the BnB car park to jack up the front of the car to try to pinpoint the source of the noise. We found a problem in the left front wheel with a squeal when the wheel was rotated slowly and a vibration when spun by hand.
Unable to find any stones or other debris, we decided it was probably a bearing, or maybe a hub or a seal but without more gear than we had, it was safer to just leave it alone. This meant a change of plans to abandon our trip for the next day and just take a slow touristy run back home with plenty of breaks to avoid anything overheating.
Not having a trip before going home meant that we could take the time for a walk around Lake Westmere just down the road from our accommodation as well as browsing a few shops at Sanson and visiting the windmill at Foxton, a nice restful end to a weekend where I checked off a major bucket-list item.
Where ‘ya been?
I also enjoyed Tuesday morning at work - when people asked me where I went on my break I could honestly say “Somewhere”.
And as a final note, the issue with Ashley’s vehicle was a combination of a worn LH front wheel bearing and partly seized brake calipers keeping the pads rubbing on the rotors. All now fixed and ready for next time.
To read the full story in the February 2019 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (January 21) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.
