Camping at Mount Cook

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33964, 3 October 1975, Page 8

Camping at Mount Cook

Sir, — I have just heard the most amazing news on the radio. The Chief Ranger, Mr Thomas, does not want the average Kiwi camping in his kingdom. Mount Cook National Park. At least he seems to have come out into the open and declared that he does not want us any closer than Tekapo or Pukaki where we cannot destroy the attractions he I wants to keep for the richer i tourist. Surely it is about I time he and' the park board

got their feet on the ground and considered the average New Zealander who after all owns the place and foots the bills. Anyone who considers a New Zealander a trespasser in a national park and would call the police to have them removed is, in my opinion. No. 1 to be rooted out. — Yours, etc., C. O. JAMES. September 30, 1975. Sir, — I offer belated congratulations for your editorial of August 23 on camping at Mount Cook. If seems entirely correct to accuse the Mount Cook National Park Board of failing to administer the park in accordance with the spirit of the. National Parks Act. If the accusation were unfounded then, presumably, the board would have replied to your editorial. But, to the best of my knowledge, it has not done so. This is, perhaps, understandable if the board accepts the view, ascribed to the Chief Ranger on a news broadcast last evening, that camping at Mount Cook is incompatible with tourism there. If the Board believes this then, I should say, the accusation is justified. — Yours, etc., R. H. STOOTHOFF. October 1, 1975.