LANDROVER 60^TH – CELEBRATION NUMBER TWO

Fielding – Mansfield Raceway 3-4 May

By Louise Hilton

Plans to attend were in place more or less as soon as the invite arrived. We didn’t need asking twice to go somewhere when some fun is involved.
Our bookings were sent away, and schedules rearranged to allow a get away early from Auckland.
Our small convoy, the Burrows with their caravan, the Stevens with their camper, and us with the caravan, and Zoë and Chris tagging along, all met nice and early for breakfast at Papakura to escape the busy morning traffic.
The idea was to travel down the western route and explore for a couple of days before arriving at Fielding.
A walk down the main street of Taumaranui, had us amazed at the house prices, and reminded us how our shops up north used to be. Dave and Graham disappeared only to reappear with a tray of cream donuts!!!
Graham and Dave fuelled up, and had Ken grinning about the little fuel he had used to get this far.
Taumaranui grew as a town because of the main trunk railway line and our next few stops were tributes to this history.

The first point of interest and donut enhanced lunches was at the Raurimu Spiral lookout and rest area. The Raurimu Spiral is one of New Zealand’s great feats of engineering, constructed  in the very early 1900’s to lift a railway line 220 metres from the valley floor at Raurimu to the Waimarino Plain above, while keeping a railway gradient. The construction town of Raurimu then had a population of 1500. Some of the origin houses still stand more or less untouched.
Graham thought of his Grandfather at this point because he started work as a 14 year old in 1914 in this area and had many a funny story of the antics they used to get up to. As we headed south the weather deteriorated, and the wind became very icy and the sky darkened.

At the Makatote Railway Viaduct we stopped in the rest area to view the tower rebuild that has just been finished. Fulton Hogan managed to renew the supports of the northern tall pier of the viaduct while it remained open. Again we are viewing a 100 year old structure. As we were looking, the Overlander daylight passenger train from Auckland, races over the top, hooting and waving at us from above. Wow it was moving fast!! Not even enough time to get a photo.
Just up and around the corner was our next interesting stop, the site where the railway from the north and south met and the Last Spike was screwed into the sleepers to finish the North Island Main Trunk Railway on the 6^th November 1908, by Sir Joseph Ward, Premier of the Dominion.
Horopito was the next stop, an old railway settlement which has all but disappeared, but now all that remains is a large siding used by the trains to park up and wait for on coming trains to pass.
As we crossed the main trunk line, the guys are ready to explore!  Smash Palace!!!

As we parked among the debris, it was all a bit mind boggling, WHERE DO YOU START!!
Smash Palace, as it got its name from the movie “Goodbye Park Pie”, is one of the bigger car wreckers’ yards in the north island.  We scrambled into the office, donated our gold coins to the visitor’s box, and were warned to watch where we are walking and watch for the guys who may be working.
Ken, Graham and Dave were instantly into spotting Land Rover parts everywhere scattered among the thousands of bits.
We walked and walked, amongst acres of wrecks, most of them filled with parts as well.
The stories started to emerge; I had one of those, that was my first car, etc etc!!!
There was even more than enough to keep us girls amused. Zoë found her ultimate trolley, and Laraine did the race car dolly pose!!! Ken was keen to get some disco rims, Dave has plans and Grahams told he has enough at home!!!! Heather just managed to get Ken out of the place!!
 It was getting colder and colder and Mt Ruapheu had disappeared in some very black snow clouds. So after a quick coffee it was off to find the Top 10 at Ohakune.
Dave swapped his camper site for a unit and the weather got colder still and it began to rain.
Friday dawned dull; and snow clouds still hid the mountain as we drove the Mountain Rd as far as we can go to a closed gate at 14kms. Pity we couldn’t see how high we had climbed or the mountain we came to see. Hot coffees, a wander down the almost deserted main street and a visit to the new Info Centre completed our visit.
The convoy was under way again, the famous “Big Carrot was photographed and we headed for Tangiwai.