WHAKAPAPA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20420, 23 November 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHAKAPAPA.

131' ELSIE 11. MOIITON.

FROM HUT TO CHATEAU.

Soven years ago wo set out on horseback across tho plains ono afternoon to pay our first visit to Whakapapa. Tho track was just a couple of rough wheel ruts winding through tussock and snowgrass along the edge of tho beech forest bordering Tawhai stream, then out to the little green island of bush in tho plains, across a pretty streamlet, and over tho tussock again to tho forest besido tho Haunted Whare. Tho distance from the Toknanu Road turn-off to Whakapapa Huts was only a little over four miles, but what miles! What pioneer of Whakapapa, man or beast, will ever forgot tho awful black morass of the beech forest, its strips of rotting fascines, bottomless bogs, and unsuspected chasms? But how beautiful tho plains and forest that still, sunny afternoon iu late summer, when we first rode up to Whakapapa! Tho cloud-cap had moved reluctantly from tho shining crest of Ruapeliu, and the snow-clad twin peaks, tho smooth, white stairway of Whakapapa Glacier and sword-peaks of tho Binnacles were swimming in light. Through the green gloom of the beech forest we rode, with the sunbeams striking down in golden shafts between the tall, inoss-draped trees. Besido tho track rose tho tall, broad-leafed " ti," tho cabbage tree of tho uplands, liko some handsome, oxoiic palm, set there in tho midst of sub-alpine trees and shrubs. Our horses picked their way carefully along the track, stopped to drink lrom little streams that trickled across the track. We let them take their time, because it was all so still and beautiful, and hurry seemed such a fretful, futile thing, there in the spacious calm and beauty of tho mountains.

Tho First Hut. Then, at last, in a wido bay, curving far back into a dark beech forest that stretched up to the lower slopes of I!uapehu, we caught "a glimpse of a tiny hut. Wc tied up tho horses, and found Whakapapa deserted. So we just walked into the hut, a little two-roomed wharo with rough bunks, wide fireplace and kitchen table. That was all, save a frying pan and blackened billy, standing on tho hearth. They pioneered it all right at Whakapapa seven years ago, I assure you. Presently a ski-ing party came down from the mountain, and there was the gladdening sight and scent of mossy wood curling in red flames and fragrant smoke in the cavernous fireplace, the ready hospitality of tho great fraternity of open road and holiday camp.

And that was how I first came to Whakapapa. Next time, there were two huts and a hospitable caretaker, also some rough paliasses (but no pillows), in the bunks. Tho Tongariro Park Board was getting into its stride!

Another time wo visited Whakapapa a great storm came shouting down tho mountains, sleety rain drove across the windows of the huts, and tho wind roared and ramped through the forest like a giant pursuing its prey. We telephoned the warden's cottage that it was too wild a night for us to return, piled table and stools on the top bunks, emptied tho caretaker's last half-packet of cornflour on the rough floor, and danced until midnight in our stockinged feet to tho strains of "Why Did I Kiss That Girl?" and

" The Prisoner's Song." Then wo went to bed fully dressed, and piled the park board's palliasses on top of us to keep out the bitter cold when tho log fire died down. A wild, never-to-be-forgot-ten night, with lightning splitting the skies with blue flame, thunder rolling and crashing down the mountain sides, a night of bleak, biting cold, that struck through to the bono!

Learning to Ski. Yet another visit, and this time there was a brand new road through the beech forest, with all the alluring twists and turns straightened out, holes filled in and fascines torn out, a wide, metalled road, with a steep bank on either side, and the beech trees that used to whisper together across the old track now thrust far apart, and all the untidy forest undergrowth and ferns cleared away. And there was a brand new traffic bridge across the Whakapapa, instead of a rough ford for the horses and a tree trunk for trarnpers.

All the world that day was glittering in a mantle of white, the plains a vast snowfield that stretched right away to Pukeonake and the frowning ramparts of Pukekaikaiorc. The snow was a foot deep outside the huts—four of them this time, and a bathroom at the end of a track cut between banks of hard-packed snow, with a heater, where, it was rumoured, you could have a hot bath foils 6d. The park board was entering into the spirit of the thing with a vengeance! There were spring mattresses in tho bunks, and a duck-board from hut to hut; we shook our heads sadly, and said all this luxury was going to do away with the old-time camping atmosphero altogether.

" Chateau Tongariro." A few weeks ago 1 paid my latest visij, fo Whakapapa. Wo bowled down the Tokaanu Road from National Park, station in a lug blue charabanc, and in a-quartcr of an hour drew up at the portals of a stately mansion. A vision of graceful white columns, lofty portico, gleaming plate-glass, gilded walls. . . But this, of course, was a dream, one of those magic castles to which folk in fairy stories are transported when (lie genie turns the ring 011 his finger. Up a wide, stone stairway we climbed, passed down long corridors, where never a footfall sounded, and tho carpets were thick and soft as beds of moss, and so to a

room, pleasantly warmed, electric lit, hot and cold water laid on, telephone, and a brand new Bible on the bedside table. It was too much; I rubbed my eyes, swayed to the window; this was not. never, cotild be Whakapapa! lint, there we 10 the golden plains, the fal - blue hills folding down, ridge beyond ridge, into (he horizon, the little, solitary beech tree at the bend of the track I used to know so well!

Another big charabanc and four limousines were speeding up tho road, swinging on to an elevated driveway, leading up to the great, white portico. No, it

was not Whakapapa; it was Chateau Tonga riro, built on the very snowfield where I had so joyously measured my length the morning I went ski-ing, the place we had talked of for years, and feared, because we thought that with its building I lie old spirit of the mountains, tho joy of camping days, would be gone forever.

Chateau Toiigariro! Tho words still seem strange, unfamiliar, after so many years of " Whakapapa Huts," And many a protest has there been against (he naming. Vet it is very hard to find anything better. " Whare"—a Maori hut —impossible! "To Heu Tlcu," after the donor of a portion of the park ? Even more hopeless; several of the guests, themselves New Zeafiuiders, called if " To liughie Ilughie," others "To Hav-How!" And, if our native-born could do that, what fantastic garble would overseas tongues make of it? Personally, I would have liked " Chateau Rnnpehu,'" even though some obscure back blocks village

already holds the mountain name. That could have been changed, but it wasn't, so (hero you art. And, once you are there, you will be so happy and cornforlablo that in the end you won't worry about it any more than wo did!