End of January already! Where is the year going??
Had a terrible nights sleep, as expected. I didn’t bother with earplugs because when trains or trucks go by the sound reverberates throughout my body, so there’s really no point. If I’d realised how paper thin the walls were, and how I could hear everything the people in the adjacent unit were doing and saying, I might have had second thoughts. On the plus side, it wasn’t too hot overnight, and there was no noise from the 24 hrs Maccas next door.
After checking out we went back to the art gallery to pick up the swag we’d bought the day before and headed off onto The Forgotten Highway. Our first stop en route was a lavender farm, where we had decadent coffee and muffins out in the garden. Decadent because they were sweet flavoured lattes, mine gingerbread and Samantha had lavender. Delicious. It was late morning and already getting hot, with bumblebees happily foraging amongst the lavender bushes. Heaven. We bought some expensive smellies and then set off again.
The forgotten highway is a long windy backroad route between Taumarunui and Stratford, and one of the last main highways to be paved over, within the last year or so. At first it’s quite dramatic, with some impressive scenery and bush, and a long single lane tunnel called Hobbit’s hole.
But, it gets old really fast. It would be very isolated living along such a road. Imagine taking the school bus each day! But I guess I’m just a city girl. By mid afternoon we had reached our destination, a lodge on the slopes of Mt Taranaki, which used to be known as Mt Egmont when I was a little girl.
We checked in and then drove the short distance up to the top car park and walked to the ski field which is now accessed by a fabulous brand new foot bridge. We were all dressed in preparation for a mountain trek but other people looked like they were on the way to the beach. I think we were overdressed but there’s probably a happy median there somewhere.
There was just time for a quick nap before dinner, the last night of our trip. The meal was delicious, in a lovely location, in the bush with kereru flying around the trees. Samantha and I have been here before in fact, we stayed here with Simon on a road trip 25 years ago, during which I discovered I was pregnant, with what urned out to be twins although we didn’t know that yet.
After dinner, having successfully dissuaded Samantha from ordering dessert because we were both too full, we went for another walk in the dusk. The Kamahi loop is through what’s known as the goblin forest, with a very magical vibe.
