Coach Road Mountain Bike

We took a bike ride on the Coach Road Walk to the Hapuawhenua and Toanui viaducts, the only two curved viaducts in the southern hemisphere. The Coach Road, competed in 1886, linked the gap in rail service between Auckland in the north and Wellington in the south. The railroad was completed in 1908 and the road was frozen in time. It is now a hiker/biker trail.

The trail goes mostly uphill through big sky rangeland. Everyone but me rented a bike. With Ivy on my back, I pulled Sawyer’s bike along with my belt. A little nudge is all he needed.
At the top of the hill the trail passes an abandoned railroad tunnel. We rode through the pitch dark tunnel to the gate at the end. It’s now fenced off so hikers aren’t creamed by trains traveling the new track which passes by the tunnel exit.

Past the tunnel entrance, the trail winds through a dark forest filled with mighty kauri trees. On the other side of the mountain the trail travels the old viaduct.

We had a nice lunch then pedaled back, going downhill mostly. “Yahoo! I love mountain biking!!!” yelled Sawyer all the way home. He was unaware he was mountain biking until we told him: “I am? I didn’t know I could mountain bike.” Oh well, last year he put “air guitar” on his Christmas list.

Here we are later having ice cream in our big campervan.

Palmerston North to Ohakune

With Grandad Ron and Mia following in their abbreviated campervan, we headed North to volcano country in the center of the north island. Not far from Palmy, the north island’s highest mountain and largest active volcano, Mount Ruapehu, came into sight, punctuating the farmland.



We stopped for burgers at the aptly named Aeroplane Café in Mangaweka. To Sawyer’s dismay, the DC-3 parked outside was closed for maintenance.



We also stopped several times to take pictures of the beautiful landscape. Sheep, cows, grassy hills, steep valleys, mountains, endless horizon… “Can you believe we’re in New Zealand!” I said to Hillery.





We stopped for the night at the Ohakune Top Ten Holiday Park. Ohakune is a little ski town south of Mount Ruapehu. The town was pretty quiet: past the summer holiday season and before the winter ski season. We took the two campsites next to the playground. The kids bounced so long on the trampoline I was afraid their retinas might detach.




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Wellington to Palmerston North

I took the train from Wellington Station to Plimmerton to fetch our Pacific Horizons campervan. The van had an air of familiarity after our January south island trip. This one is slightly bigger than the last. I drove directly to the Kilbirnie Pak ‘N’ Save to load up on supplies, leaving the children with the babysitter while Hillery worked.



Back at Chevening, Sawyer helped me load the van while Ivy slept. To distract him and keep him quiet, I let him play in the van, which was parked on the sidewalk. From the living room windows, I watched him pretend to drive and shoot pedestrians with his imaginary pistol.

I strapped the kids into their seatbelts at around four-thirty and headed toward downtown to collect Hillery. Rush hour traffic was heavy. State Highway 1, the major artery to Auckland and points between is a winding two-lane highway, but a scenic route it takes to the Kapiti Coast before turning inland to farm country around Palmerston North. Sharp, mostly bald hills shape the landscape. Autumn is here and more evident away from coastal Wellington.

We stopped at La Casa Romana, a little cheese shop and café in Otaki, for pizza.



We arrived at Aunt Julia and Uncle’s Nicholas’ lovely house on Savage Crescent in Palmerston North at around 8 o’clock. The grown-ups had decaf espresso with Baileys. Uncle Nicholas again tried to explain rugby to me.



We fell into our campervan routine with relative ease. Sawyer slept in the loft, Hillery and I slept in the stern, and Ivy slept in the middle berth.

“Palmy” is on flat land. The streets are wide and straight. The houses sit in neat rows.

After a quick breakfast the next morning we went to nearby Fitzherbert Park to play on the playground, have a break at the café, and tour the wonderful-smelling rose garden.




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