A NEW ROUTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 307, 27 December 1924, Page 11

A NEW ROUTE.

AUCKLAND TO TARAXAKI. (From Onr Onn Correspondent.) STRATFORD, Friday. The trip to Taranaki by road from the Auckland province is becoming very popular »s it is being made by an ever increasing number of motorists and tourists. At present tlie majority use the route from Te Kuiti to New Plymouth via the wakino Valley, where the scenery to be met with is very fine. There is, however, another route which', though not quite so well known, offers much greater attraction from a scenic point of view. This is the Ohura Road, which branches off at Pio Pio, and runs through to Taranaki via Ohura, Whangamomona and Stratford. At present the Stratford Progress League are taking steps to popularise this road, and bring its charms prominently to the notice of northern motorists. With that end in view photographs taken along the route will be displayed in hotels, tourist offices, etc., in Auckland and other northern towns. The Ohura Road, although not a metalled one, is in excellent order during many months of the year, and the district engineer of Public Works, Mr. T. W. Ball, recently informed an Auckland ''Star" representative that until about April it is quite a good motoring thoroughfare. The road runs through the Tangarakau Gorge which provides 12 miles of scenery that ia indescribably magnificent. For practically the whole of the roufe between I Pio Pio and Ohura the road passes : through beautiful bush country which is yet unspoiled by the trail of the axe. Between Ohura and Whangamoniona the aforementioned gorge is encountered, and between the latter towns and Stratford the scenic beauty is no less striking. For eight miles the road runs over the Whangamomona saddle, and, as those hills are ascended, a panorama unfolds itself the loveliness of which holds one spell bound. This part of the road was, until recently, somewhat difficult 1o negotiate, but the road drag, recently described in the columns of the "Star, has been used on it and the rrsult is that the road is in excellent order and next year it will be metalled. From thence' to Stratford the type of country is different, the bush giving way to cultivation and a glorious vista, of smiling farm lands is obtainable, while away to the west the solitary cone ol Mount Egmont stands like a sentinel in solitary grandeur. There is no doubt that when this route becomes more widely known it will be one of the most popular and extensively need routes in the North Island.