The Desert Road

There are a couple of routes south from Lake Taupo, but the most scenic is on State Highway 1 across the Desert Rd. This is an alpine desert and when the weather is clear the views are stunning. This is one of our all time favourite drives. Leaving Lake Taupo, the road follows along the side of the lake. In a couple of places, you are literally driving with a cliff on one side and a drop-off to the lake on the other. These are in spots that are well posted to SLOW DOWN, and you do, unless you want to end up in the lake! About 20 minutes past the town of Taraunga at the south end of the lake, you start the climb up to the Desert Road. It’s twisty, windy, narrow in spots, hairpin turns, steep in places and a lot of fun to drive. There are numerous pullout lanes for trucks so traffic gets through. I found out that sport mode in our little Golf is ideal for this and the day was clear and dry, so perfect conditions. As you get to the top, the road straightens out the views are spectacular. The road is above the tree line, so the landscape is low scrub and gravel bordered by mountain ranges on the east and west. To the west is Mt. Ruapehu, the tallest mountain on the North Island, an active volcano, and a popular ski area. You can get to one of the ski areas from the Desert Rd on the Tukino access road. We’ve passed this many times but this time we took a right turn and slowly worked our way a short distance along the road to get a clear view of the Mountain. The road is really not suitable for cars, SUV’s, and trucks yes, VW Golf’s, no.

The south end of the road continues to Waiouru, home to one of NZ’s military camps then on to another favourite stopping place, Taihape - Gumboot Capital of the World! It’s a great place to stop, grab a coffee and stretch your legs. We took a bit of extra time this stop and went for a decent walk though another redwood forest.

As we made our way further south to Palmerston North, where we‘re spending the next 3 weeks, we took an alternate route across the Vinegar Hill Rd. This is once again a typical NZ highway, lots of twists and turns but a really nice drive. There’s a smust see lookout part way along, Stormy Point that gives you awesome views across the valley and if it’s clear enough you can see Mt. Ruapehu and Mt Taranaki from there. It turns out Vinegar hill is named after an incident in colonial times when a cart overturned and spilled it load of vinegar over the hill. Sometime’s odd events live on for no particular reason.

For a driving trip in NZ, it’s nice to find these alternate routes. This really is a sparsely populated country so there is lots to see if you just take a bit of extra time.