Forgotten World Highway starting at Eltham

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Stratford

   Stratford has a clock tower that plays Shakespeare, and the whole town has leant into the joke. Its streets carry names such as Juliet, Romeo and Portia, and the glockenspiel on the tower acts out scenes from Romeo and Juliet several times a day. It is a farming town of a few thousand people on the eastern flank of Mount Taranaki, in the rolling dairy country of the North Island's west, and it is an easy place to like.

   Read the complete Stratford write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Stratford is where the day begins. Next is Whangamomona.

2. 2. Whangamomona

   There is a republic here, and it takes itself exactly as seriously as it should. In 1989 the folk of Whangamomona, annoyed at a boundary change that moved them from Taranaki into Manawatu-Wanganui, declared independence, and they have kept the joke running ever since. Republic Day is held every other January, and the presidents elected over the years have included a goat and a poodle, which says something about the standard of candidates. A passport stamp from the hotel is the souvenir, and you can reasonably claim to have crossed a border.

   Read the complete Whangamomona write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Whangamomona comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tangarakau Gorge.

3. 3. Tangarakau Gorge

   The Tangarakau Gorge is the unsealed heart of the Forgotten World Highway, State Highway 43, a twelve-kilometre stretch of gravel where the road squeezes through a deep, bush-clad cutting between Whangamomona and Taumarunui. The cliffs on either side are soft sandstone and mudstone, grey and crumbling, hung with fern and moss and dripping with water, and the road follows the bends of the river through them. It is dark, damp and green, and a world away from the open farmland on either side. There is a feeling of remoteness here, as though the modern world has been left behind.

   Read the complete Tangarakau Gorge write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 100 km into the recorded legs you reach Tangarakau Gorge. Next is Taumarunui.

4. 4. Taumarunui

   Taumarunui is a railway and river town in the middle of the North Island, in the hill country that people call the King Country. The name comes from the Māori King Movement, whose leaders took refuge here in the nineteenth century when the land was closed to the colonial government. The Whanganui and Ongarue rivers meet nearby, and the Whanganui, long a canoe highway, flows south from here through deep bush to the sea. The main trunk railway from Auckland to Wellington passes through, and the town grew as a railway stop, with a main street that still has the look of that busy age.

   Read the complete Taumarunui write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Taumarunui closes the day.