A NOBLE HERITAGE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume 1, Issue 8, 14 February 1914, Page 6 (Supplement)

A NOBLE HERITAGE.

TONGARIRO NATIONAL PARK.

[Specially written for The Sun.] In the mid-most part of the North Ifflaiul there is a park, little known, seldom visited, but very well worth knowing. It isn't fenced and it has no trim lawns or notices to keep off the grass, no band rotundas or even a flower-bed, but it has other attractions rather more rare than these and is an ideal place for the tired man to take that tired feeling and lose it. The tired person with the habitually tired feeling isn't meant, of course — this recreation ground is meant for the man who is legitimately weary, the one who is fagged from constant attention to his work. A tired man of that sort who is earnestly desirous of redeeming the overdraft on his vitality will find the Tongariro National Park an admirable place for saving health and getting interest on it. The Tongariro National Park is hardly suited \to languid people and picnic hampers —it is a big stretch of variegated country about 14,000 acres in extent with its western boundary in the middle of the King Country, and the eastern boundary somewhere in a line with Lake Taupo, and it encloses, amongst other things, the volcanic peaks of Euapehu, Tongariro and Ngaurahoe. Like many other fine things in New Zealand it is less known to New Zealanders than to outlanders — for it is the folk who come from overseas who make the greatest number of its explorers, and yet it is just as ideal a recuperating place for the/, health-seeking. New Zealander as for the travelling American, Englishman, ov Australian. A PLACE TO WANDER IN.

If one is fond of fishing one can get good fishing in plenty in this- park; if alpine crfmbing is one's hobby it i:an easily be gratified in the ascent of the peaks named; if the bush lures there are miles.of birch fojjSst.^L-ti-e-west-ern aids Or i'fie park, stately, beautiful bush through which a thousand streams hurry over numberless cascades. There are also plains covered with weirdly-growing, stunted trees fiat give the impression of having been\ designed by some artist out of «.)ld Japan. There are hot pools and icily cold sulphur streams that roll their greenish waters amongst the tussocks. It is a place to wander in, not for luxurious lolling—the Tongariro Park ie" no place for those disinclined* to exertion, for it is devoid of all the trappings of civilisation, it is not hid in a cloud! of poudre de riz and scandal as is fashionable Kotorua—it is Nature untrammelled and uncombed. In the Tongariro National" Park one does not take qualified ease in an accommodation house, one lives in tents, and very pleasantly too, in fine weather, and does one's own cooking. It is all very primitive, far from ciyilis-. ation (or seems so) but exhilarating.

There are various ways of getting to the park, but the simplest tracks lead from three townships on the Main Trunk railway line. The easiest track loads from Waiouru, a station about twenty-five miles from Oliakune, where one can get a coach which, will take the explorer to an accommodation house on the fringe of the reserve, and there he can get horses to take him the rest of the journey. This route is for those who do not particularly care for the bush, for those who would spare themselves exertion, and for anglers.

SPLENDID BUSH SCSNEEY. . There is plenty of good fishing in the streams round the accom-modation-house, and level country and tangled orchards too. But if one wants to feel the splendour of the bush at early morning, its coolness at mid-day and its evening fragrance and mystery, one cannot do better than take the track which leads from the railway station * at Eangataua. This seven-year old township is a prospering little place in the middle of the North about three miles distant from Ohakune, and there is located a "Government Guide" (it is a courtesy title, since it carries no Government subsidy) who will undertake to provision the traveller and supply horses. The base of Mt Euapeliu is only ten miles from Eangataua and an ordinarily active man can do the journey, ascend to the top of the peak, and return within a day. It is an easily travelled track through splendid bush scenery, and the ascent of the mountain is not so difficult as to invite only experienced alpine climbers. There 'lfc another track from Ohakune (where there is another guide), but the scenery on this path lacks some of the attractiveness of the Eangataua route, while it possesses the additional disadvantage of leading over many hills and gullies. Once through the odorous bush, one comes out upon the scrub-covered foothils of Euapohu, whose eternal snow-cap towers above, and in the foot-hills the first camp is pitched, and then the ascent of Euapehu is begun. It is not a hard climb, as mountaineering goes, but it is stiff enough for the inexpert, and the climber is quite glad to get to the summit; but once there he has one of the most magnificent panoramas in this country of splendid', scenes spread beneath him like a relief map. Seeing quite-' near at hand the peaks of Tongariro and Ngaurahoe loom up, and on a clear day Egmont can be seen plainly, away distant on the west coast. Looking down the crater of Euapehu one sees a still and portentously-dark lake, eerie and gloomy. Then the explorer goes over the summit and descends a spur which leads up the side of Ngaurahoe. AN ACTIVE VOLCANO. There is another steep climb, but that accomplished there is the rather unusual experience of looking into the crater of an active volcano —only moderately active, but active nevertheless. Ngaurahoe also has a lake : in its crater, but this lake is warm, and often it is so hot that_ it sends up a dense cloud of steam which veils the peak from below. One can spend weeks tramping with rod or gun over this National Eeserve, and find something unusual and beau-

tiful each day, and seldom coming across a fellow explorer. It is a wide place and unfrequented, and that is one of the reasons for its being an ideal place. wherein a man may find physical hardiness. No doubt within a few years Euapehu will become a popular summer resort, with accommodation houses, coffee, liqueurs, fripperies and femininities, and its companionable solitude will be lost, but in the meantime it exists ruggedly for men who can cmjoy ruggedncss and find, pleasure in physical exertion and the tiredness that follows on a Jong day of tramping. It is not for those who want their pleasures made easyall its wonders, its beauties of dewfresh bush, dawn-lit snow peaks, wide tussock lands, hot springs, and icy, limpid streams are for those who will seek them. The holiday-maker who prefers the tea, talk, and fripperies of the more carefully arranged, show places is not the one to find solaco in this quiet domain where pregnant Nature broods in careless majesty, but for the man who is still primitive - enough to respond to the moods of Mother Earth this wide reserve was made. ~,...-, ......,..... ,„.'.., There he can taste those eternal, elemental delights of which the gipsy spoke to Lavengro —"Night and day brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?" ■ • DICK HARRIS.