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Local Information
Desert road

In New Zealand the most striking near-desert experience you can have is on the road to Waiouru.
State Highway One winds through a bleak windswept tussock plain called the Rangipo Desert. This is a unique alpine semi-desert, with the forbidding appearance of a wild desolate wasteland. To the east it merges with the densely forested foothills of the Kaimanawa Ranges. To the west there is no horizon, as the landscape and sky are overwhelmed by the monumental outline of Mt. Ruapehu. Dark canyons and shadowy scree slopes tumble from the snow-capped peaks and merge with the indistinct landforms of the plain...
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Waiouru is the largest of the New Zealand Army’s installations.  The 86,818 hectare training area runs alongside State Highway One for 35 km, and its widest point reaches from Ruapehu’s snowline to the Rangitikei River headwaters, approximately 30 km to the east. .

It includes the Moawhango Dam (part of the Tongariro Power Development Scheme) which is fed from the waters of 22 streams on the southern slopes of Mount Ruapehu by aqueduct under the Desert Road. The training area is used for live-firing, manoeuvres and basic training.
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