DESERT ROAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 April 1938, Page 4

DESERT ROAD

NATIONAL PARK ROUTE. IMPROVEMENTS PROPOSED. The “Desert Road” in the National Park area is well-known to New Zealand motorists, many of whom will be pleased lo learn that within a few months it is expected to be transformed into a serviceable motor road. The “Desert Road” is not a main road, but if you want to take the more unusual route over the National Park area, and if you are intrepid enough to risk being marooned, you can take this "Desert Road.” Travelling south past Lake Taupo it leaves the main road six miles past Turangi, which is near the southern end of the lake, and passes to the east of the mountains, joining the main road again at Waiouru, 20 miles north of Taihape. Once this desert road was the coaching route down the centre of the island. Little improvement work was carried out, and for many years it has been avoided by motorists, who have preferred to take the main south road leading down the western side of the park. Today, however, Public Works Department camps have been established along its length, MAY BE MAROONED. The motorist brave enough to take the desert route at present faces the possibility of being marooned in the arid country he passes through. Apart from the Public Works employees there are no inhabitants in the driedup pumice belt. If he should encounter serious engine trouble, the motorist must either sit down and wait for assistance, which may be a week or more in coming or tramp through dust to Waiouru. In winter the rains churn the pumice sand to a sticky morass —a trap for the motorist rash enough to attempt the alternative route. Situated high above sea level, the road actually passes along the lower side of the mountain, and in winter snow covers the dry tussocks scattered on either side of it. When the motorist leaves the main road near Turangi he passes through dense bush country, which gradually thins into sparse shrub land; this in turn turns to the flat, dry desert. Public Works enterprise, however, has already transformed portions of the route into useful roadway, and a few months should see the work well on the way to completion.