Event: Walkers see the new Manawatu Tararua Highway taking shape
Several hundred folk took up the chance in May to take a scenic walk over the Tararua Ranges as part of the the Woodville Lions Club’s “Walk the New Highway” fundraiser following the route of the Te Ahu a Turanga Manawatū Tararua Highway.
It was not a walk along the actual path of the new road but the route of the walk incorporated some highway sections under construction, newly formed machinery access roads, some farm tracks, sections of existing Meridian Wind Farm service roads and even a steep tramping track down and up a muddy gully and a pine plantation.
Whereas the existing Gorge Road utilises the gorge that was cut out by the river.
Over the millions of years as the Ranges were uplifted, the Manawatu River progressively maintained its route. Unfortunately the Gorge is not stable.
Rather than cutting through the landscape, the new Te Ahu a Turanga Manawatū Tararua Highway (mostly) makes its way over it. I assume that as the ranges continue to rise up so will the new road! We drove over Saddle Road to Hope Road where we checked-in, signed health and safety statements and were directed to the queue for the bus to take us back to the start of the route near the bottom of the Saddle Road at the Ashhurst end.
We did not start from the vicinity of the Gorge Walk car park as this would have required us to cross the Manawatu River a bridge only now under construction.
It was Sunday so there was no work in progress and all of the machinery was parked up.
Our first impression was of the scale of the project with its a wide initial access road, the site-park full of large, expensive earth moving machines and numerous dump trucks.
We left the bus and started to ascend, the plot below shows the profile of the walk, of about 13km. The completed road is to have a maximum gradient of 1 in 10, parts of our exploratory walk were much steeper. The weather for the day was mixed with a few light showers. At the high points the wind chill was extreme.
The route of our walk is shown on the map below in green with red
arrows, the saddle road in red to the north. The red at the bottom of the map is the existing Manawatu Gorge Track. Again it must be emphasised that our walking route is not to be that of the final road.
At various places along the route of the road we came across impressive rows of parked-up earth moving machines and dump trucks but as it was a Sunday the only staff we met were route wardens watching for any struggling participants.
The wardens were located at roughly half km intervals with some sitting in four wheel drive vehicles and some hardy souls sitting out.
The final descent was on scraped bare surfaces so care was needed. There was a friendly atmosphere between the participants but from a trampers perspective, many were inadequately shod and clad so it was fortuitous that the weather did not deteriorate into heavy rain.
The 13km walk took us four hours including a lunch stop, and proved to be an enjoyable and interesting experience. I would like to repeat it in a year or so, to witness progress.
It is also good news that the project when complete is to include walking and cycling tracks.
Thanks to the Woodville Lions and the construction consortium for having the imagination to organise and allow the event to take place