TONGARIRO PARK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 75, 24 February 1930, Page 6

TONGARIRO PARK.

(By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 24. The Tongariro National Park Board has been able to make the area tree from tolls as a result of successful negotiations with the Main Highways Board, which has agreed to take over the maintenance of four and a half miles of road connecting the main road with the Chateau Tongariro. This road had been built by the Park Board at a cost of £7OOO and, failing other sources of revenue, it had been obliged to cliaree a toll on vehicular traffic. This has been already lifted and the board also decided at a meeting this week, on the motion of Mr J. B. Thompson, the chairman, to cease charging tods for r.he use of the Ohakune track.

It is intended, at the board’s expense, to replace the bridge over the Whakapapa river with a permanent structure of concrete piers and steel joists and to put the road into good order. It was reported that one mile 15 chains of new road to the Tama lakes and the Mangatepopo hut had been constructed and that work also was proceeding on the road to Scoria Flat, on the Ruapehu slope, which is intended to give easy access to the skiing ground, three miles from the chateau. The lease of an additional 84 acres of ground fronting the chateau has been granted to the Tongariro Park Tourist Coy. on which to construct a golf course. It will cost £SOOO. The work is in progress and is expected to be completed early next year.