Run-holder happy to host tours

Press, 30 November 1987, Page 3

Run-holder happy to host tours

By JANE DUNBAR Public access to the 9300 has Glenhope highcountry station is encouraged by its runholder, Mr Graham Hewett, as long as it is properly organised. Four-wheel-drive tours for sightseers and three to five-day tramping trips began last year in this Lewis Pass station. Started as a means of diversification, the success of the trips would depend on how the track stood up to the heavier use, said Mr Hewett. An average of $BOOO a year was spent on its maintenance. On Saturday, more than 130 people travelled through the station on a special fund-raising trip organised by the Amur! Lions Club. It rained throughout the day and Mr Hewett said he would be interested to see how badly churned the track was after 24 four-wheel-drive vehicles had passed through. An Amuri Lion Club member himself, he suggested the excursion to the club, and was surprised by the numbers who showed up. As it was a special fund-raising trip, he took the group on a 72km path around the station, through areas not open to the public.

Entry was from opposite The Poplars station, up a steep road above the Hope River, and then 14km around to the station homestead. It was then 23km up the Waiau River through to The Narrows (Waiau Gorge) where a barbecue lunch was held in the rain. Bush shirts, parkas and tarpaulins kept the wind and rain out for those on the back of trucks, and the trip continued on through beech forest and finally out into the Magdalen Valley. Mr Hewett said he was glad to give people an opportunity to go into the station, and that it was a good way to look after the environment. “If you know people are coming in, you want it looking its best.” He believed further diversification on the station was possible, and cited rafting as an example. “I’m a farmer though,” he said, and so preferred commercial operators to do the organising. This does not cause problems as they “work in close contact with me,” he said. “We can’t have everyone coming and going as they please.” But public access “is 0.K.” if organised.