Crazy but true

Cowboys are in our DNA. Even a millennial child brought up on Star Wars and Minecraft somehow knows, instinctively, how to burst into a saloon through batwing doors, Stetson pulled low over the eyes. And for those of us brought up on TV Westerns? Mellonsfolly Ranch is simply a delight.

It’s also a dislocating shock. After driving through the Central Plateau’s lumpy green scenery, to reach the end of the road into the Ruatiti Valley and find yourself on Main Street is surreal. It’s all there: the livery stable, the Lucky Strike Saloon with its honky-tonk piano, Miss Nancy Ann’s Hotel for Single Girls, the Marshal’s Office, and more, much more.

Starting out as one man’s private indulgence, the old west town of Waterfall Mountain is now a fully-developed themed resort where guests can indulge their inner cowboy in surroundings that evoke 1880s Wyoming. Authenticity is the guiding principle but this does not, of course, apply to the guns: the armoury in the Marshal’s Office is lined with rifles and six-guns of various types, all operated by gas and fi ring pellets that are still effective when drawing a bead on a pesky Coke can, that spins and spouts water most satisfyingly when hit.

More peaceable types can settle into a Western saddle for a horse trek through the surrounding hills for great views of Ruapehu; or, less authentically, take off on a mountain bike. Either way, a soak afterwards in one of the clawfooted baths in Texas Rose’s Bath House, warmed by the pot-bellied stove, is the ideal way to soothe the muscles. And then? A chat by the campfire, swapping tall tales, before the iron gong rings for dinner in the saloon, or maybe stay outside for a chuck wagon barbecue, under a sky full of stars.

Bedtime means being tucked up under a patchwork quilt in a Victorian brass bedstead. Sleep well: tomorrow could bring a show-down on Main Street; narrow-eyed gunslingers toting Peacemaker six-guns in their holsters and drawling, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.” Actually, it is.