Invitation to adventurers

Press, 29 July 1989, Page 4

Invitation to adventurers

By

CULLEN SMITH

A North Island outdoor training centre is seeking applications for a journey similar to that done last year by the adventurer, Graeme Dingle, and six violent inmates.

The Turangi Outdoor Pursuits Centre, plans a month-long trek through the North Island for eight young people and two instructors as part of the country’s official 1990 celebrations. At a cost of $2250, the eight participants will tramp, climb, kayak, sail, cave and mountain-bike their way from Wellington to Cape Reinga in what the centre claims will be an adventure to prepare them for the adventure of life. The centre director, Mr Mick Hopkinson, said interest in such a course had grown remarkably since Mr Dingle’s arduous trek aimed at aiding the rehabilitation of offenders last July. Mr Hopkinson, an inter-nationally-known canoeist and mountaineer who ran the St Andrew’s College outdoor course until taking a directorship with the Outdoor Pursuits Centre recently, is looking

specifically for eight young achievers representing a cross-section of New Zealand society. Four people, aged between 17 and 22, will be selected from each island, with the team being named after applications close on September 15. “We’re treating it as a pilot course. If it’s successful, we’d like to do more,” Mr Hopkinson said in Christchurch yesterday. "People have got to be prepared for teamwork, personal achievement and heaps of fun.” Partly sponsored by the 1990 Commission as part of the sesquicentennial celebrations, the odyssey is set to begin in the first few minutes of the new rlppoHp “We’d like to be first off,” said Mr Hopkinson. So, while most people will still be welcoming the new year in the traditional manner, the eight adventurers will paddle their way across Welling-

ton Harbour by kayak, heading for the Tararua Ranges, their first big hurdle. Once over the Tararuas, the group will travel down the Otaki River to the sea, then cycle through Palmerston North, along the Rangitikei, through Waiouru to Tukino. The three volcanoes — Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro — will be scaled, with the adventurers then rafting the Tongariro, paddling across Lake Taupo and down the Waikato to Waitomo where they will stop for some caving experience. Mr Hopkinson said the group would then cycle up the Coromandel Peninsula, sail to the Bay of Islands and cycle up the beach to Cape Reinga, arriving on January 28. Participants are expected to make their own way to Wellington and then back home from Auckland.