14.08 Taumarunui: A Forgotten World Adventure or Two

8.A Pilot Cart Heading into Another Tunnel on the Stratford-Okahukura Line

When Jean and I lived in Te Awamutu in the first half of 2013, in her work for the Waikato District Health Board ('WDHB') she traveled to two outlying clinics. One was in Te Kuiti, about forty minutes south of Te Awamutu, and the other in Taumarunui, about two hours south (at least for foreign drivers like us). As I've reported in a previous post, Taumarunui was once an important railway and lumber center. With the closure of numerous lumber mills and with the electrification of the North Island Main Trunk Railway ('NIMT') the town's economic significance dwindled and its population dropped from around 6500 in 1986 to around 4500 in the 2013 census.

We traveled back to Taumarunui, Te Awamutu, and Hamilton this past weekend to visit former colleagues of Jean's and to visit friends of ours at St John's in Te Awamutu. We had very pleasant visits. We were also drawn to Taumarunui by the desire to experience an adventure or two on offer from a Taumarunui-based enterprise called Forgotten World Adventures ('FWA'). The enterprise began operations in 2012 and now offers 'rail, river, and trail' adventures in New Zealand's King Country. 

During New Zealand's Land Wars in the 19th Century the King Country served as a redoubt for the so-called Kingitanga Movement, which established (among other things) what has become an enduring monarchy among the Māori iwi (tribes). The King Country served as a redoubt because of its extraordinarily crumpled and vexingly complex topography. I hope the photos that follow begin to suggest the topography that thwarted military movements against the Māori and hindered the completion of railway lines in the King Country. The NIMT was opened in 1908. The Stratford-Okahukura Line ('SOL'), with its 24 tunnels in 89 miles (144 km), was completed in 1932. The FWA rail adventures operate over the SOL, which traverses some of the most inaccessible regions of the King Country.

8.B King Country (Sawtooth) Ridgelines

8.C A King Country Sentinel Tree & Cattle Below

8.D King Country Isn't Rolling Country

8.E King Country Bush and Pastureland

8.F More King Country Piled Topography

Today the King Country along the SOL is either pastureland or what Kiwis call 'bush'. Bush is wilderness, which in this part of New Zealand is forested. Had we taken a so-called '20 Tunnel Tour', I understand we would have encountered a good deal of bush west of the point where we disembarked. A map depicting the routes of Forgotten World Adventures ('FWA') appears here.

Jean and I participated in what FWA calls its 'Rail & River Run', which entails both a 10-tunnel journey on the SOL and a ride up or down the Whanganui River on a jet boat. The FWA rail ventures entail customers traveling in former golf carts. The carts, imported from the state of Georgia (USA), are equipped with flanged wheels of steel or of heavy-duty plastic. Forgotten World Adventures favors the use of plastic wheels because they are quieter (and it has retrofitted carts accordingly). The carts come in two-person and four-person versions. Here's a photo of the one we rode from Okahukura. 

8.G Our Forgotten World Adventures 2-Person Cart

As you might imagine, those who venture out on the SOL thru Forgotten World Adventures do so not solo but in the company of what I'll call a 'cart convoy'. In the lead is a 'pilot cart' run by an FWA guide, who is in charge of the convoy. The guide is responsible not only for the convoy's safe transit. She or he acts as a jack-of-all-trades.  Among other things, our guide, Maree, was responsible for clearing away windfall on the line, shooing away sheep that had somehow managed to enter the right-of-way, and serving tea at an enroute halt. Not least, Maree was a congenial, knowledgeable and attentive guide who helped make ours an instructive and memorable journey on the rails. At each halt she had stories to tell about places or people that we, her fellow rail cartwheelers, had likely never known of, much less forgotten.

8.H Waiting for the Entire Convoy to Arrive at a Halt

8.I Maree Wheeling Her Pilot Cart, Leading the Convoy Towards a Tunnel

8.J Cartwheelers Inspecting a Water-Challenged Tunnel Portal

Our convoy of cartwheelers included a couple with their young son from the Isle of Jersey, who like us were booked for the Rail & River Run. Additionally about a dozen ladies, teachers from Taumarunui, were out on a ten-tunnel group venture to celebrate the end of the school year. Here are some more photos of the line we all traversed from Okahukura. 

8.K Narrow Rail and Road Rights-of-Way

8.L Cattle Browsing (Above) / Outbuildings (Below) 

8.M Typical Open Deck Girder Bridge on the SOL (Perspective Above/Detail Below)

8.N Typical Ballast Fouling at a Tunnel Entrance

8.O A Vegetation-Challenged & Slip-Challenged Tunnel Entrance

8.P At a Halt in a Tunnel

8.Q Brick Lining (vs Concrete) Typical of Most
Tunnels that the 10 Tunnel Convoy Traversed

8.R Tangent CWR Track on the SOL

KiwiRail suspended service on the Stratford-Okahukura Line in 2009, mothballing the line. In 2012 it elected to lease the line's use to the Forgotten World Adventures enterprise. KiwiRail and its predecessor enterprises must have invested in the line right up to its mothballing. The evidence of this is in the continuous welded rail ('CWR') sections, Pandrol fittings, and even occasional concrete ties (sleepers). The engineering challenge to FWA is simply to keep the line open, especially clearing away slippages in the winter season, when ventures out on the SOL aren't (yet) offered to the public. 

Hopefully, Forgotten World Adventures will prosper. The enterprise seems well organized and thoughtfully designed. It has created about two dozen new jobs in Taumarunui. All things considered, the King Country suffers more industrial archaeology than would be desired. Some of that archaeology along the SOL is a reminder of what can happen when enterprises loose their vitality or purpose or capacity to serve economically.

8.S Cartwheelers Disembarking to Inspect
 Matiere Station Remnants

8.T Mine Office at an Abandoned Coal Mine

8.U Two More Tunnel Approaches

Our convoy of carts came to a last stop at a place called Tokirima, where Forgotten World Adventures has established a picnic area. An FWA associate from Taumarunui had driven out and prepared a picnic, where we cartwheelers were afforded the opportunity to eat fresh sandwiches of our own confection. Available ingredients included ham, cheese, fresh greens, relishes, and so forth. And of course there were a variety of beverages. An incoming FWA bus brought customers who would cartwheel it back to Okahukura, after themselves having lunch at Tokirima. That same bus took those of us on the Rail & River venture to a spot on the Whanganui River where we met the jet boat that would take us back to Taumarunui. The teachers who'd been on the 10 Tunnel tour rode back to Taumarunui by bus, after we'd cast off on our way upriver. Our river pilot, Ron, from time to time stopped the boat to tell us stories about the people who'd used the river and the places that cosseted its waters. He was a superb pilot and storyteller.

8.V Jet Boat Arriving for Return Journey to Taumarunui on the Whanganui River

8.W Jet Boat Easing In

We had great experiences on the Rail & River Run and would highly recommend it to others. For those not desiring a jet boat ride, Forgotten World Adventures offers plenty of other rail cartwheeling options through the beautiful King Country of the North Island.

Merry Christmas,
Tim (& Jean)

PS During our brief visit to the central North Island we ambled around the Victoria Street district of Hamilton. The city has what may one day be an internationally recognized botanical garden (as I briefly described here). And in that vein Hamilton deserves more recognition for its parks. Here below are two photos I took in the park domain between Victoria Street and the Waikato River.

PPS On 2 April 2017 Timsvideochannel1 (no connection with me) published on YouTube a video entitled 'Rail carts through the Forgotten World', which depicts snippets of travel on a Forgotten World rail venture from Tokirima to Okahukura.

PPPS on 28 November the online New Zealand Herald carried an article about Forgotten World Adventures' fruitless effort to find a new general manager, whose pay would be up to NZ$150,000 per year.

8.X Greenery in Hamilton

8.Y Another Big New Zealand Tree