Day 12 En route to Wellington

We were on the road again today. We left Taupō at about 10.30am headed for Wellington where we’ll stay overnight before getting the Interislander ferry to the South Island. The distance between Taupō and Wellington is about 383km on State Highway 1, with an approximate driving time of 5 hours.

We did encounter some road works as anticipated but it wasn’t too bad and we were not much delayed by it.

The countryside between Taupō and Wellington varies quite a lot, with some flat and some quite hilly sections. The scenery alternates between forested sections and agricultural land planted with crops like maize or providing grazing for sheep and cattle. The constant being the magnificent cloud formations in the blue, blue sky.

On Peter’s recommendation, we stopped for lunch at a small town called Taihape in the Rangitikei District with a population of about 1,800 people. The town was founded in 1894. Bizarrely enough, the town is renowned for gumboot throwing. I didn’t know that was a thing and I’m still not sure that it is! Apparently gumboot throwing began as a annual competition in 1985 but is available as an activity all year round. Needless to say, we decided to forgo this particular local activity.

For such a small town, it has a lot of coffee shops so it is obviously a popular refreshment stop on the journey to and from Wellington. We decided on one that Peter had recommended called Le Café Telephonique which occupies the building that was once the town’s telephone exchange and it has some old telephone memorabilia on display. It turned out to be a very good choice because the food was excellent.

New Zealand lost a tremendous number of its citizens in both the World Wars. Around 18,000 New Zealanders died in or because of the First World War and about 41,000 men were listed as wounded. More than 2700 died at Gallipoli at and almost 12,500 on the Western Front. A total of about 105,000 men and women from New Zealand served overseas during the Second World War. Of those nearly 7000 died on active Army service and a total of over 11,000 in all services. Nearly 16,000 were wounded as well.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them – Laurence Binyon The Fallen

We arrived in Wellington at about 4.30pm and checked into the hotel, feeling a bit tired. We went across the road to get a bite to eat at about 6.30pm and plan on having an earlier night than usual because we have an early start tomorrow morning to get the ferry.