Park board finds track "compromise"

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 10, Issue 442, 30 June 1992, Page 5

Park board finds track "compromise"

Repairing the track into the Mangapurua Valley in the Whanganui National Park should be paid for by the Ruapehu Distirct Council, if hunters are to use horses and twowheel bikes on the track. That is the recommendation of the Taranaki -Whanganui Gonservation to the Department of Conservation. The board had earlier promised to seek a compromise on the use of the track by local pig hunters, who want to be able to take horses or bikes intc

the valley for carrying out their quarry. The department has said the hunters' use of horses and vehicles is incompatible with trampers' use of the track, while some hunters claim very few trampers use the track, which leads to the Bridge to Nowhere and the Whanganui River. Three and four-wheel bikes did far less damage than horses and two-wheelers, the board conceeded. The board recommended that the closure of

the road to horses and two-wheel bikes be enforced unless negotiations with the Ruapehu District Council over funding of maintenance succeed. Funding would be for maintenance to a standard to allow horses and bikes on the track, while keeping it suitable for trampers. The Ruapehu District Council had no money for such work, Ruapehu 's Mayor Garrick Workman told the conservation board at the meeting with the board and hunters earlier this month.