While here in NZ as part of its epic second time round global lap, Oxford’ the celebrated Series 1 Land Rover certainly got around; in this case to Whanganui for the Land Rover Series 1 Enthusiasts group’s annual gathering then to Hawke’s Bay for a run over some of the trails that were going to be used had Covid-19 not forced the last-minute cancellation of the Hereworth School’s biennial Safari fund-raiser.

A few years ago, I was working on a project in Whanganui and drove my Land Rover Discovery down the Parapara Road on a beautiful clear February evening – and thought how great it would be to drive my Series 1 down this road with the lid off – in the same conditions.

This year, the team behind the local Land Rover Series 1 Enthusiasts Group decided to hold our annual ‘gathering’ in Whanganui, so – and as luck would have it – I did indeed got to drive my Series 1 down the Parapara Road in the exact same conditions I experienced all those years ago – just stunning. What a great start to the weekend.

This year we also had a very special guest coming along for the ride in the form of Oxford – the first vehicle to drive overland from London to Singapore back in 1955, a journey which most of you reading part 2 of this series will know all about, hopefully, after reading part 1 in the July ’21 issue last month.

Suffice to say Oxford was here in New Zealand on a solo journey around the world and thanks to the generosity of its UK-based private owner, Adam Bennet, plus the support of Land Rover New Zealand and Star Insurance we were able to have it in Whanganui for our meet.

‘Life’s a whole long journey, boy!’

The journey from Auckland to Whanganui is 450km – and should take about five-and-a-half hours to drive it – or seven hours in a Series 1 Land Rover and by 7pm I was really looking forward to a cold beer and a quick burger – but our hosts for the weekend, Philip, and Gillian Avery, had arranged for a 1954 ex-London double decker bus to pick us all up for a tour of their hometown.

Don’t panic – I did manage to gag a beer and burger down just before the bus arrived, with our first stop the Victorian District – at the southern end of Victoria Ave – for a quick look at some of the large street art that decorates many of the old buildings in the area.

27-Feb-21: Saturday.

The plan this morning was to head up Durie Hill where we will meet the Double Decker Bus again for a short visit to the River Markets on the City side of the river.

Built in 1925, the Durie Hill War Memorial Tower is constructed from Shell-rock, or rock composing of fossilised Seashells quarried inland from Wanganui. The Tower was built as a memorial of the horrific death toll New Zealand suffered during World War 1.

Once we were all resunited with our vehicles at Durie Hill we set off in convoy along Number 2 line to Ford ell where Philip and Gillian had prepared a Gymkhana for us all to test our driving skills. The Gymkhana had nothing damaging – or scratchy. Simple hill climbs and sidings – followed by some coordinated driving skills.

It was mid-afternoon before we headed off to follow the Whanau River inland up the Mangamahu Valley to a forestry block, where Ken Pawson took us up to show off his ‘Man-Cave’ on a high ridge looking east up the Whangaehu Valley.

Following a quick cuppa – we carried on across a Forestry Block, crossing Mt. Mitchell (315m) before descending into the Makirikiri Valley – but the back gate had been padlocked shut... about 30 years ago, by the look of it... so even if by some miracle we had a key, I doubt if it would have done us any good looking at the rusty lump that used to be the padlock.

Fortunately, in true Land Rover spirit, Bert (MacGyver) Millman came to the rescue and within seconds spark were flying everywhere and the exit gate was dragged open.

Emerging from the Makirikiri Valley we stopped off to admire the $3.4m Upukongaro Cycle Bridge before heading back to camp for a swim and a dust removing beer.

Later that night as we were sitting around the table at camp all our phones started to beep. My hometown of Auckland had gone into another Covid Lock down.

28-Feb-21: Sunday.

Ready for another day of 4WD action – well maybe not, but we headed across Whanganui and inland on SH4, following the Whanganui River, before turning off at Parihauhau Road and headed up into the Papa Clay country. The corrugations were really shaking us up but after I had stopped to engage the free-wheeling hubs, we had just started to move off again and the engine just died.

‘Turns out that my flash new electronic distributer had completely failed after only two days on the road. Fortunately, I had thrown the old mechanical distributer in, just in case and only 12 minutes later – we were ‘Oscar Mike’ again and heading up the road.

From the moment we left the sealed road we started climbing, as we worked our way higher up the faces of the Papa-clay cliffs. Most of these roads were cut through in the 1920s to 1940s to open up the country as Soldier Rehabilitation farms

We had the privilege of being hosted by the O’Neals at Maewa Station for morning tea then headed north east up and over the lower slopes of Mount Maewa (where we had another distributer to rebuild) before descending down to Raupiu Road, and out to SH4, next stop Don and Liz Polsen’s property on to Te Rimu Road, where over lunch, Don told us about the horrific floods of 2004 and his near-miss when the jet boat they were using to rescue stock, struck a tree and sunk in the storm raging river.

Near their gateway is a phone pole with an ear tag nailed to it indicating the high tide mark. It was a good 4m up the pole – which was on top of the bank – probably a good 30m above the river below. That is one horrific amount of water travelling down the Mangawhero River, but not surprising when you check the catchment of the Mangawhero, which starts on Mt Ruapehu above Ohakune nearly 100km away to the north!

We headed south out of the Mangamahu Valley and stopped briefly at ‘Jim’s Corner’ for everyone to catch up before heading back to camp via Fordell. A quick scrub up and strolled across the road for a meal at the Citadel Café.

01-Apr-21: Monday.

Monday morning and we were paid a visit by the local newspaper reporter, who ran an article on our event and later in the day it was time to hit the road and head back home.

Many thanks to Philip and Gillian Avery for hosting this year’s event and the great people that came along and to Adam Bennett for loaning us Oxford for the weekend.

The video of this trip and many other can be viewed on YouTube at Kevz110.