Travel guide to New Zealand’s Forgotten World

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This was published 8 years ago

Travel guide to New Zealand’s Forgotten World

By Andrew Bain
Updated
The creased hills of New Zealand's Forgotten World.

The creased hills of New Zealand's Forgotten World.Credit: Alamy

I'm rolling through the greenery of New Zealand's central North Island in a golf cart, but this is not a golf course. Though a carpet of lush grass climbs up the mist-shrouded slopes, I'm not here to swing a golf club, but to do the seemingly impossible: cross borders in this borderless country.

I'm heading into New Zealand's so-called Forgotten World, a region where both civilisation and glory have long faded. Volcanoes press at its either side and tourist trails swirl around it, but rarely venture inside. These golf carts, however, may just be the vehicles that return the Forgotten World to memory.

Adapted to run on rails, Forgotten World Adventures' carts travel a century-old railway line from the North Island's Central Plateau to the self-declared Republic of Whangamomona, at the heart of the Forgotten World.

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The carts are self-drive, and as we motor out in convoy from the railhead at Okahukura, we have 83 kilometres of rails ahead to Whangamomona. Farmland and thick bush jostle to cover the land, and the railway line will bore through 21 tunnels, their damp, dark walls illuminated by the headlights of our golf carts.

The first tunnel, a short distance from Okahukura, is the longest - 1.5 kilometres - and took 10 years to carve. It's a tunnel of such length that we enter it in sunlight and emerge into thick mist.

It's a rapid weather change that's clearly no random anomaly. In this new valley, lichen coats fence posts and hangs like streamers from trees. It feels primeval, haunting, a place worthy of its Forgotten World title.

Golf carts heading through an old siding on the railway line into the Forgotten World.

Golf carts heading through an old siding on the railway line into the Forgotten World.Credit: Andrew Bain

The name is a creation, originally given to the road into the region early last decade, but it's also a sound fit. When construction of the railway began in 1901, the line ran through a thriving corridor of farmland, forestry and coal mines. Supplies came in by rail, and goods and resources flowed back out.

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At one point late in the railway's construction, the town of Tangarakau had a population of 1200 people. Eighty years later, when our golf carts drive through, a sign declares it a 'ghost town' with a population of just eight.

The carts trundle along at a leisurely 20km/h, curling through deep valleys and burrowing through creased hills. Sheep scatter as we pass, and an alpaca wanders over to greet the carts. Apples, walnuts and blueberries grow almost wild beside the railway line. Quiet country roads meander beside us, though at one point more than an hour passes before I see a car.

The railway line into the Forgotten World enters the Republic of Whangmomona.

The railway line into the Forgotten World enters the Republic of Whangmomona.Credit: Andrew Bain

It's an eight-hour ride in the carts to Whangamomona, with the journey flickering between day and the artificial night of the tunnels. The tunnels provide a stark contrast to the road into the Forgotten World. Named as New Zealand's first heritage trail in 1990, the Forgotten World Highway (aka State Highway 43) features only one tunnel, a keyhole so narrow it's been christened the 'Hobbit Hole'.

Instead, the road runs like a rollercoaster over four mountain ranges, with the volcanoes of Tongariro National Park shrinking away behind, and the companion volcano of Mt Taranaki looming larger ahead.

The road and the rail come together at Whangamomona, the town with a name as convoluted as its recent history. It's been 100 years since the railway reached the small town, but the last passenger train stopped here in 1983, with the freight service ending in 2009.

Three years later, Forgotten World Adventures' golf carts took to the tracks. In the company's first season, around 2300 people rode the rails, a figure that more than doubled in its second season.

At Whangamomona's edge, our carts putter to a stop. Here, they'll be spun on the railway turntable, ready to return the following day (we'll be driven back in a bus along the Forgotten Highway). There have been no border procedures, but we've entered the Republic of Whangamomona.

In 1989 this was just a small, and largely forgotten, New Zealand town, but local government reforms that year saw council borders adjusted and Whangamomona shift from one council area to another. In protest, Whangamomona declared itself a republic.

Over its 25-year history, the republic has voted in a goat and a poodle as president, and continues to celebrate a Republic Day every second year (the next will be in 2015). Held on the Saturday closest to November 1, the town's population is said to grow a hundredfold, swelling from 40 residents to a street party of more than 4000 people.

The heartbeat of the town is the Whangamomona Hotel, where the breakaway republic was declared. Forgetting its own rebellion, the hotel calls itself the 'most remote country hotel in New Zealand'.

Inside, I stamp my passport at the 'Passport Office' - a tiny section of the bar - grab a beer and read through the snippets of republic history that grace the pub's walls.

I've reached the end of my travels by golf cart - this hotel might be considered the 19th hole - and as I look at the crowded front bar, I wonder if Whangamomona and the Forgotten World might be on their way out of oblivion.

TRIP NOTES

MORE INFORMATION

newzealand.com/au

GETTING THERE

Air New Zealand has daily flights from Sydney and Melbourne to Auckland; see airnewzealand.com.au. InterCity buses travel between Auckland and Taumaranui, where Forgotten World Adventure trips begin; see intercity.co.nz.

STAYING THERE

Hilton Motel Taumaranui, 9 Hakiaha, is just a few steps from the Forgotten World Adventures office, rooms from $95; see See twinrivers.co.nz. Forgotten World Adventures offers the option of staying a night at the Whangamomona Hotel, with luggage transferred from Taumaranui.

SEE + DO

Forgotten World Adventures run a series of golf-cart tours, from a short "10 Tunnel Tour" to a two-day trip along the length of the railway to Stratford. The "20 Tunnel Tour" to Whangamomona costs $295 per person. See forgottenworldadventures.co.nz.

The writer was a guest of Tourism New Zealand.

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