This month Weekend Drive correspondent David Coxon writes about heading deep into the Waitotara Valley north-west of Whanganui, the same weekend – as it turned out – the Manawatu 4WD club ran their Canteen fundraiser.

Our trip up the Waitotara Valley was strongly recommended by a friend in the 4WD club. 

Although not a particularly long one, adding the time to get from Wellington to Whanganui and back again made it too long to do in a day, so we decided to plan for good weather and go up on Saturday afternoon to camp at Ashley Park, just out of Whanganui. We could then make a day trip out of exploring the Waitotara Valley and returning to Wellington. 

Arriving at Ashley Park on a warm and sunny evening we found it to be a very pleasant place with a range of accommodation including enough secluded campsites for even the children’s birthday party not to be a problem. 

Although it was getting a bit colder at the tail end of summer, it was a beautiful, crystal-clear evening with a very old moon and little light pollution to detract from an amazing view of the stars. 

Cool change

Things changed overnight, however, and we awoke to the sound of gentle rain on the tent. In saying that it was very satisfying to see that although it was soaking outside, my recent waterproofing and general servicing of the tent meant that everything inside it was bone dry. We were also lucky to be able to enjoy breakfast warm and dry in the camp kitchen, then a relatively leisurely pack-up, giving me time for a scenic if rather damp walk down to the nicely landscaped lake before leaving the very pleasant and well-maintained campground.

Heading east on SH3 we soon reached Waitotara, although finding the start of the road up the valley was more of a challenge. After a couple of false starts we discovered that the correct, if rather non-intuitive, route was to turn left for the coast just before the bridge over the Waitotara River, then loop back under the bridge to head up the valley on a sealed road. 

The first part of the trip was rather damp with first views of the lower valley showing it fading off into the mist. The clouds gradually lifted, however, and the sun started breaking through as we got deeper into the valley. 

Busy spot

One thing that surprised us was the amount of traffic coming towards us. Firstly, there was a procession of horse floats – apparently there was a major horse event starting the next day – then we seemed to be getting a lot of tough and dirty 4WDs heading towards us. 

Stopping to talk to one group I found out that there had been a charity tag-along (see Murray Taylor’s story on the Canteen event in the June issue of NZ4WD) on properties at the head of the valley and everyone was now breaking camp and heading home. Luckily the road was still sealed and wide enough for oncoming traffic not to be a major problem.

Eventually we reached a Y-intersection at what was shown on the map as Makakaho Junction, confusingly signposted as Ngamatapouri, where there was a nice grassy area where we could pull off for morning tea, out of the way of the oncoming traffic. 

I had barely made the coffee when we were recognised by the driver of one of the oncoming vehicles, a fellow member of the 4WD club, who stopped for a chat. This caused their friends to stop, then the friends of the friends, and suddenly we were in the centre of a knot of about a dozen vehicles effectively blocking the road.

Of course, in typical rural NZ style, it was all very friendly and social, with introductions all round and a catch up on the news before people resumed their journey. One of the things we had learnt from the group was that the tag-along camp ground was just up the right fork, so we decided to take the left fork up Taumatatahi Rd first and come back to the right fork when the traffic had died down.

First photo stop

Heading up the left fork, the road soon turned to gravel as we worked our way further into the valley. It was not long before our first photo stop at a simple but beautiful local church, St Hilda’s in the Wood, built in 1904. It was then another 10km or so on a narrowing gravel road until we reached the road end at Taumatatahi, where there were a few people camped just inside the gate at Remote Adventures, the start of a DoC walking track. 

Since the sun was now starting to poke through the clouds, we did a bit of a walk into the station to see if we could find any information about other activities but, apart from than getting buzzed by a helicopter as it landed, we could find no sign of any reception or visitor facilities.

As usual, the return trip to Ngamatapouri seemed a lot shorter than the trip in, so we decided to carry on up Makakaho Rd, soon passing the paddock where the last few of the tag-along group were still packing up. This was a much more open gravel road which we hoped would take us to the end of the road as marked on the map, where there was a marked track leading to the end of Watershed Rd, a route we had followed last winter (September issue) and it would be nice to almost ‘close the loop’. 

So close... yet so far

Unfortunately we came to a private property sign and gate a mere two km from our destination. Time to turn back and find a lunch stop. Not far back, we were pleased to find a fairly open and flat clearing surrounded by pine trees where we could park off the road and get far enough back from the road to feel away from any traffic, while not being on any fenced farm property.

Given we were now technically on the run home and had plenty of time, it was very pleasant to relax and enjoy the sunshine and peace over a leisurely lunch before a steady run back to SH3 and home.