Outdoor life has much to offer visitors

Press, 18 February 1986, Page 28

Outdoor life has much to offer visitors

More people are turning to forests for outdoor recreation and the New Zealand Forest Service is acknowledging and encouraging this demand. It is improving access from main roads to forest boundaries, forming walking tracks, bridging difficult streams and rivers and building and maintaining huts and camp sites. While native forests offer the greatest scope for leisure pursuits, exotic forests, although primarily for wood production, also provide excellent opportunities for recreation. Canterbury has three forest parks managed by the Forest Service and are used in a variety of ways. While used by the public for recreation, the parks are also important for protection, conservation, and in some cases, timber production.

Hanmer Forest Park is probably Canterbury’s best known and most popular, attracting more than 100,000 visitors a year. Exotic trees can be enjoyed from numerous walking tracks ranging from easy family rambles to steady climbs suitable for more energetic walkers.

Hanmer’s forest drive has proved popular over the years, so too have the

many picnic places which have been developed in a variety of attractive settings. The remote western part of the park is used by trampers, climbers, and hunters. There is a park information centre which is open most days from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.

Craigieburn Forest Park is best known for its skifields — there are five in and near the park. While ski-ing is the main attraction in the winter, summer visitors come to walk the short tracks, picnic, camp, or call at the visitor centre to see displays. The area to the west of Craigieburn Range is popular with trampers. Hamilton Hut, built in the Harper catchment, has become the focal point of the popular Cass Saddle/ Lagoon Saddle weekend tramping route. The park is only one hour and a half from Christchurch and is easily accessible from State Highway 73.

Lake Sumner Forest Park, is situated on the eastern ranges of the Southern Alps about 100 km from Christchurch, and is a park for those with time to spare. The broad river valleys, forested slopes, and alpine grasslands and herbfields, bounded by the peaks of the Main Divide

in the west, provide beautiful surroundings for tramping, climbing, hunting and fishing. State forests also provide a wide range of opportunities for recreation for people of all ages.

The foothill forests of Ashley, Mt Thomas and Oxford, with their close proximity to Christchurch, provide excellent opportunities for day visitors to enjoy many different activities in a variety of forest settings. For the keen hunter there are small populations of red deer, pigs and chamois. South Canterbury forests are noted for their diversity. Mt Hutt, a mecca for skiers, is mostly an indigenous forest with walking tracks through attractive alpine vegetation, while Geraldine and Waimate Forests are planted mainly in exotics on easier rolling country. The Ohau forests, of which there are six, provide plenty of scope for trampers, hunters, campers, and fishermen. For day visitors there are easy graded walks and shelters and barbeque facilities in the Huxley and Temple Forests. No permits (apart from hunting) are required to visit State Forest Parks or any signposted recreation areas, such as picnic sites

and public walking tracks, in ordinary State Forests. For all other areas permission should first be 'sought by contacting the nearest Forest Service office or individual forest headquarters.

When the fire risk is high restrictions may be placed on entry. Hunting permits and brochures on recreation areas can be obtained from Forest Service offices.