Spirals, Stairs and Elevators

The plan for last weekend was supposed to be to do New Zealand's best one day hike- the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.   Food was purchased, accomodation was arranged, bags were packed--- but the weather on the mountain didn't cooperate (winds to 70km, rain, snow to 1000meters--- um no thanks!).  I was quite bummed, but once we got exploring the area other than the Crossing, it ended to be a fun weekend!

The town is called National Park, and 460 people live there.  It's about 3 hours from Hawera, via Wanganui (more about Wanganui later).   There are plenty of shorter tracks and sites to see in the town.

Like Tawhai Falls...

And Taranaki Falls..

And Linzunderthe Falls....

And Linzontopofthe Falls!

(yup, that's me up there!)

New Zealand loves to tribute food items to towns (ie Manaia and its bread). Here, the town of Ohakune (a few km's from National Park) claims itself to be the Carrot Capital of New Zealand.

Another neat site near National Park is the Raurimu Spiral.  If you're at all interested in engineering, you'll love hearing about this!    In the 1880's, folks were trying to build a railway from Auckland south to Wellington (the two biggest cities of the North Island).  In the center of the North Island, the steep slopes of the volcanic plateau created a building snafu.... it was nearly impossible to build a reasonable route (without a huge detour) over those mountains.   In 1898, RW Holmes solved it... with a Spiral!

This may be hard to understand just through pictures (and no play by play explanation with pointing), but here we go.  Below is a model of the spiral in the Ohakune visitor centre:

The whole shebang is actually (from top to bottom) one complete spiral, then thru the tunnel, down the left side, then a hairpin turn.  This engineering masterpiece creatively tackles the 433 foot elevation change here, much too steep for a standard train track.

Right now, the commuter train only goes through once each direction daily, and we were fortunate to be there when it was descending down!

Here's the hill of the spiral in the distance:

 Look close and the colors in the middle are the train travelling counterclockwise around the spiral, into the tunnel.

 Here's the train again, exiting the tunnel heading L->R towards the hairpin turn:

 At this point we ran down the steps of the observation deck, SPRINTED for the car, and zipped on over to the Raurimu station to see the train up close!

Some people are tornado chasers--- I guess this classifies us as train chasers :)

In other fun steep climbing things, I spent Sunday in the town of Wanganui, about an hour southeast of Hawera.   The town is based on the Wanganui River, and a canoe race was going on that day.

On the other side of the river is Durie Hill, which is home to the Durie Hill War Memorial Tower, seen below.

Durie Hill can be climbed one of two ways:  a walkway with 191 steps, or a ride on NZ's only earthbound elevator.   Guess which one I did?  Both!!

I trekked UP the stairs for a huffin, puffin workout.  
You can then climb the two dozen extra stairs on top of the Elevator's machinery tower for some decent city views:

Machinery Tower

Next climb was the 176 steps of the War Memorial Tower (109 feet tall!):

From the tower lookout, some more awesome views of Wanganui City and River, and beyond!

So, back to the Elevator--- I took it back DOWN the hill, but I'll share my photos in reverse to pretend you took the elevator UP the hill :)

Durie Hill elevator--- NZ's only public underground elevator!

 Built in 1916.   You first approach a loooong lighted (but still creepy) pedestrian tunnel cut into the hill....

(Trust me I was looking over my shoulder the whole time!)

 At the end of the tunnel, you reach the operator's room (green) and the elevator shaft (red).  Ring the bell, the operator comes out of her room, opens the gate, you pay her a gold coin, and she gives you an elevator ride of 66meters... all underground through the Hill!   Neat.



After all those stairs, I was ready for a break.  I headed to the Botanic Reserve, found a sunny patch of grass, and relaxed in the sun by a small pond.

Although the start was nasty, fortunately the weekend ended with some sunshine.  Hopefully the next time we plan to attempt the crossing the sun will cooperate for the ENTIRE weekend!

Here's hoping the skies stay as blue as the water for all my future adventures!