Te Araroa (day 28) - Johnson's Campsite to Jerusalem/Hiruharama [Bridge to Nowhere] / mile 804
Jet boating from Bridge to Nowhere to Pipiriki commenced and it made me regret opting out of canoeing the river. In the morning I walked the remaining ten miles to the Mangapurua Landing without any issues, stopping for a while by one of the landmarks of the Wanganui National Park called Bridge to Nowhere. It was a big concrete and steel structure government decided to build here with the idea of running the road into the Wanganui park. They wanted to do that because after WWI soldiers who returned to New Zealand were gifted plots of land here and many went into the wilderness to work it. Unfortunately the area was to remote and difficult to farm and access points were often buried by the landslides. Within 20 years most of the soldiers and their families abandoned their farms and moved back into civilisation. The bridge remained unused and disconnected, leading to nowhere. A statement to the failed human ambition, standing now forgotten in the middle of the forrest. I found it quite p...