Car-lotta and I paused at the intersection.
To the left was the Napier - Taupo Highway, winding its way through the known way to my final destination of Havelock North - it offered the safety and security of Transit’s finest open roads.
To the right was the lesser known route - a 152 km drive following a road, colloquially known as “The Gentle Annie,” around the headwaters of the Rangitikei, Moawhango and Hautapu Rivers.
Meandering past old farming stations sequestered in spectacular valleys and snaking through ancient gorges and along wild and rugged ranges, all with the promise of a final view towards Cape Kidnappers on the East Coast.
My parents had cautioned me against driving this route in the 7.4m long Car-lotta, but my interest was piqued, I was intrigued, “how bad could it be? and why call this road the Gentle Annie?” I asked. My parents who had plied this road on some far distant holiday sans their charming children, had only enigmatically smiled.
Left or right - the known or the unknown. I turned Car-lotta to the right.
We began by driving along a plateau fringed by tall hills, the horizon stretching into infinity. Changing gears, Car-lotta and I began our ascent. The only other traffic on the road appeared to be stock trucks and delivery vans;
it seemed for some reason, typical tourists had forsaken this route for the much longer and blander Napier-Taupo Highway but I am not your typical tourist. The road narrowed with less straight stretches as I entered the foothills, the corners suddenly more abrupt and I needed to spend more time braking and wrestling with the steering wheel than gazing at the scenery.
It became a WWE match between Highway 49 and the suspension of my Italian motor chassis.
Amongst hairpin curves and treacherous corners, cupboards swung open and the minutiae of holiday baggage began to spill across the cabin behind me; then on a particularly sharp 180 degree corner, the fridge door flew open, exploding last night’s leftovers and tomorrow night’s pavlova all over the floor; stock trucks loomed, sharp embankments threatened and the road narrowed to another torturous turn that careered us onto a one-way bridge.
The waters of the raging Rangitikei River below, threatening to envelope us should this driver make a hasty movement one way or the other and plunge us through the fragile-looking barriers.
With cream and strawberries sliding over the floor creating an art piece that Jackson Pollock would be proud of, I finally made it to the other side of the overpass and a rest stop - God bless you, TransitNZ - finally enough room to stop and recce the mess. My rear berth looked like an explosion in a gelato shop.
An hour later with dripping mop and saturated towels, it was time to rejoin the drift east. Was that my parents I heard chortling in the distance?
As light faded and the cattle trucks lessened, we finally crossed the crest of the ridge and began our descent into the Taruarau Valley, however there was no relief from the churning turns; the tantalizing views of spectacular New Zealand, including the promised views of distant Cape Kidnappers and Te Mata Peak, caught only briefly in the distance.
Finally 4.5 hours later, the gradient leveled and the road widened against the stands of pine trees of the Kaweka Forest where fortunately, there was room enough to park up my trusty steed and leave the driver’s seat to sit and pull myself together.
The kettle boiled, (I wouldn’t dare admit to hitting the bottle) I sat quietly while my agitated eyeballs continually hit each side of my eye sockets in a relentless game of pingpong. It took an hour for my eyes and equilibrium to settle enough to hit the road and continue my path to Havelock.
The stretch of straight road and bland scenery, a welcome respite … but then a lightning bolt hit me. I got it! We had a Gentle Annie once, it had worried itself into oblivion, washing the sheets of my parents’ various motels for years - until finally passing out in a tangled and mechanical mess.
Now I get it and now I know how it felt. (ROSS THORBY)
“And I said to the man who stood at the door of the gate of the year ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown’ and he replied ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God that shall be to you better than light and safer than the known way’”
#ponsonbynews #iloveponsonby #ponsonby #auckland #aucklandshippestrip #onlyponsonby #ponsonbyroad #Greylynn #freemansbay #westmere #ponsonby #hernebay #stmarysbay #archhill #coxsbay #westernsprings #rossthorbyfranklinroad