We enjoyed our short hike across the Manganui Gorge swing bridge and walk to the ski field, but we had another goal to reach, so we drove down off the mountain and headed east. The town of Stratford is the western terminus of the Stratford-Okahukura Rail line (from the Nov 9 post) and is at the base of the eastern flank of Mt. Taranaki. We decided to drive the Forgotten World Highway from Stratford to Whangamomona, the town where we started our golf-cart rail-trail Forgotten World Adventure. The road travels across the eastern volcanic plain to the town of Douglas where we had to stop!

Besides the dairy farms in the area Douglas was known for it’s Brick Works, a brick and tile making factory that was built in 1900 and finally closed in 1981. Most of the bricks that were used to build the towns and some of the infrastructure of the railroad were manufactured here from the local clay.

The railroad was just across the road from the Brick Works.

The Forgotten World Highway was originally pack trails in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. The Railroad construction from 1900 to 1936 brought more settlers, but the Depression of the 1930’s wiped many farmers out and they abandoned their homesteads. After traversing the eastern volcanic plain the Highway becomes extremely winding, going over 3 major saddles of mountains made up of ‘Papa rock’, a soft, blue-grey mudstone or muddy sandstone that was and still is a road planners worst nightmare! It is layered as in this bluff, when wet it is slippery and sometimes the layers of mudstone catch water between them and sheets or slabs slide off from time to time. When dry it can flake off in big slabs as well. We finally made it to our destination and enjoyed sandwiches and coffee at the Whangamomona Hotel.

It was a beautiful day for a drive and the Hotel was a welcome rest stop!

These satellite images show where we are on the North Island. The right image is the North Island, the red square on the upper area is Auckland, the pink outline on the lower left is the Taranaki region. The image on the left is a closeup of Taranaki, the pink dot is approximately where we’re staying. The colors are accurate. The dark circle is Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki, formerly known as Egmont National Park, established in 1900. It is covered with native forest surrounding the almost symmetrical cone of 8,261 ft. high Mt. Taranaki. The surrounding volcanic plains have been developed into mostly dairy farms. In January, 2025 Mt. Taranaki became the only mountain in the world granted legal personhood, affording it the same rights, powers, duties and responsibilities as a person under the law, joining the Whanganui River as the only river granted personhood. Imagine 85% of the North Island was covered in forest before Europeans arrived!Since today was forecast to be partly cloudy we decided to take a road trip. We headed up toward the mountain.

The mountain top faded in and out of the clouds as we drove up the southern flank. At one point the clouds retreated enough that we had a clear view of the peak.

From the gravel parking lot at the end of the road we walked the half mile up to the Manganui Gorge bridge, constructed just a year and a half ago.

An impressive swing bridge built to make the passage over the Manganui Gorge more safe. Especially since the trail leads to the only ski area on the mountain!

The bridge is guarded by Rakahore, the personification of rock. He is one of the protectors of Mother Earth (Papa) against the attacks of Ocean Maid (Hine-moana). He holds a touchstone that visitors can touch to connect the past with the future.

The Manganui Ski slope, 3 tow lifts after a 30 minute hike from the parking area. At least there is a ‘flying fox’, a basket strung across the gorge on cables, to transport your gear to the small ski lodge / mountain hut.

We’re moving on from the rural farmhouse but doing some sightseeing on the way. We stopped at a viewpoint to see the Three Sisters and Elephant Rock across the outlet of the Tongaporutu River.

Elephant Rock is in the foreground, no longer looking so much like an elephant. The 3 Sisters are the rock spires in the surf.

The sea stacks are being eroded over the years even as new ones are formed from erosion of the cliffs. At the turn of the century there were 4 Sisters, now only 2 are counted (the smaller of the 3 in the picture above). The Sisters can be approached via a walk along the south bank of the river as it flows to the sea at low tide only. We were going to attempt that walk until we saw hikers returning covered in mud, barefoot, carrying their muddy shoes and attempting to wash the sticky mud off in pools of water along the beach! Also, the tide was coming in! I grabbed a photo off the internet from several years ago of Elephant Rock before erosion caused the loss of the ‘head and trunk’ section of the rock.

We arrived at our next B&B in the town of New Plymouth in the Taranaki Region of the North Island, with Mt. Taranaki overlooking the whole area!

From the front door of the B&B on a good day, Mt. Taranaki can be seen above the neighborhood!

Our first outing by car from the property! We went out to celebrate Robert’s birthday at a local pub, a 20 minute drive down a narrow gravel road, hoping we wouldn’t encounter an empty log truck coming up the road! A nearby property is being clear cut and the road is heavily traveled by log trucks and local loggers in their ‘utes’ (the term here for any utility vehicle).

We made it safely down the road and enjoyed a wonderful pub meal of burgers and chips with a beer!

After arriving safely up the gravel road we enjoyed a partly sunny afternoon on the back deck watching the sun illuminate the forested bluff. We had a somewhat colorful sunset to the west at the front of the house!

We’ve had stormy, rainy, windy weather since we got here. We are happy to lounge in the house, enjoying sleeping, eating, snacking, napping, eating again, watching TV, reading and canoodling. We did take a short walk during a break in the weather to stretch our legs.

A view of the homestead as we departed for our walk with the native forest covered hill in the background.

We walked over a hill and down the gravel road to see the muddy Mokau River flowing by on its path to the Tasman Sea.

The close-by hills are heavily grazed by mostly dairy cattle and some sheep. The distant hills are covered in dark native bush.

We enjoy watching the dairy cows parade past the back of the house on their several-times daily trek to and from milking or moving from paddock to paddock.