Walking encyclopedia – part 1
Posted 26 August 2010 // Jock Phillips
Part one of a two-part series. Part two will be published tomorrow.
Te Ara's general editor gives thanks for passing through the lahar-risk area unscathed
Let me make it quite clear: I am not a walking encyclopedia. I would love to be, and it’s one of the occupational hazards of being Te Ara’s editor that people expect me to be, but years of too much red wine have had their effect and the memory is not what it was. When people ask me a question about New Zealand, I instinctively reach for the laptop or, even better, the cellphone, so I can search Te Ara for the answer. This is what I mean by the walking encyclopedia. Te Ara, after all, is ‘the pathway’. Lately, when walking along a bush track or exploring a heritage site, I have been struck by how much Te Ara can enrich the experience.
Take my latest bout of physical exertion. About two weeks ago I was lucky enough to join three other Kiwi blokes (more on them in part 2) on a tramp around the south-east flank of Mt Ruapehu, up to the Crater Lake and back down to the Turoa ski field. If I had not forgotten to charge the cellphone (that memory again!), these are some of the things Te Ara would have told us as we walked.
As we set off with our light, brilliantly designed equipment, we might have learned from the tramping entry how much luckier we were than our predecessors with their hobnail boots, their frameless packs (’kidney rotters’), their heavy woollen clothing and their inaccurate maps.
We were walking on DOC’s beautifully cared for round-the-mountain track. The walking tracks entry will tell you that for the first centuries of human settlement here, people walked long distances because they had no choice. Māori walked to collect pounamu over southern passes, miners walked along the ‘pigroot’ to get to the goldfields. But at the end of the 19th century people began to walk in the New Zealand bush for enjoyment. One of the first places they did so was in the Tongariro National Park. The park, Te Ara’s National Parks entry tells us, had been gifted to the nation by Horonuku Te Heuheu in 1887, fearful that his sacred volcanic mountains might be divided and sold. By 1904, we learn, there were huts at Ketetahi and Waihohonu, with separate rooms for men and women.
Soon after we started, the Blyth track joined us. Not far from that track, Te Ara tells us, are the remains of an old hut. It was built by Les Bergesen during the Second World War. He was trying to avoid being conscripted, so he hid out in a couple of huts in the area. You can see a photo of the hut and Ashley Cunningham’s full story.
As we wandered across glorious country, with patches of red tussock and moss and clusterings of pink pine (which we can learn contains manool, a chemical used in perfume), we were disturbed to see contorta pines appearing as an unwelcome invader. As our entry on weeds of the bush tells us, contorta is but one of a number of invasive trees – along with buddleia, tree privet, woolly nightshade and Himalayan honeysuckle.
We stayed nights at the Mangaeheuhu and Rangipō huts – the latter with magnificent views over the Rangipō desert. The next day we found ourselves crossing the Whangaehu River, the route of the terrible lahar which swept down on Christmas Eve 1953 and washed out the bridge at Tangiwai with the loss of 151 lives. To see exactly what happened, see Te Ara’s great interactive.
By now we had reached the snow and had become, not trampers, but mountaineers. So to see what we saw next, and who was the real walking encyclopedia, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for ‘Walking encyclopedia – part 2′.
