The Pillars of Hercules are a short diversion off the North end of SH1 – the Desert Road and are so named as the Tongiriro river is squeezed through a narrow gorge reminiscent of the fabled Pillars of Hercules at the entrance to the Strait of Gilbraltar in the Mediterranean sea.
Turn off SH1 onto Kaimanawa Road and follow the road up to a bridge, the view over the edge here is worth a quick stop and you can walk down a track under the bridge. Once over the bridge take the first road on the left and this leads down and over the Rangipo Dam where there’s parking room on both sides of the dam for photo’s.
From the dam the track turns to gravel as it heads uphill and can be a bit rutted, at the top of the hill if you want to explore turning left takes you to the entrance of the underground Rangipo Power Station and if you turn right only a short distance away the Pillars of Hercules are signposted down another road to the left. The road to the Pillars of Hercules is a short easy gravel road that ends in a small carpark and the swing bridge over the gorge is 20 metres from the carpark. The last 100 metres down to the carpark is quite steep but as the track is firm and fairly smooth even on a big bike should be ok.
If you turn left just before the descent to the swing bridge Urchin road heads off for a distance and hasn’t been explored. You can’t really get lost in here as all the roads are deadends.
Once over the Pillars of Hercules swing bridge tracks lead off and I believe you can get to the bottom of the gorge, however we didn’t explore that far to find out.
There are 3 free DOC campsites off Kaimanawa road with Long drop only facilities which could be quite busy in summer as there are a number of tracks nearby which are popular with walkers and mountain bikers.
Contributed by: @eddieb
Track type: Gravel Road
Track composition: Bumpy, Firm, Steep
Slippery when wet? No
Suitable for bikes <650cc? Beginner
Suitable for bikes >650cc? Beginner
River crossings? No
Member @chris-adam went to the Pillars of Hercules and found it quite daunting. Warning: Don’t have the volume too loud if you are watching this at work.
hahaha awesome hard to get the concept of height but it must be puckering :/
hahaha awesome hard to get the concept of height but it must be puckering :/
The pillars of Hercules GPX tracks have been updated to include the track over the Rangipo Dam
There is a wee ‘bonus extra’ on your map there Eddie, from SH1 trough to Kaimanawa Road near Beggs Pool.. Heading north on SH1, on the last of the bends before you hit the big straights, there’s a DOC sign showing a Mountain Bike track to the Pillars. It’s mainly flat with a few big puddles and can be quite overgrown in places. There’s an obscured left turn off the Pillars track that will take you through to Kaimanawa Road. This is a bit rutted and overgrown but mainly flat and do-able on a litre bike on knobbys, recommend south to north.
And when you get out onto Kaimanawa Road there’s a gravel loop you can take from Beggs Pool to Waihaha Valley campsite. Then there are the the roads along the Poutu canal system, but that’s a story for another post, soon.