Chateau Tongariro

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 811, 4 November 1929, Page 8

Chateau Tongariro

Dominion’s Frozen Playground

TODAY the official opening of Chateau Tongariro will make available to all the multitudinous attractions of the National Park, a region of frozen mountain peaks and roaring torrents, of picturesque beech forests and wild fern gardens, and of icy lakes and bubbling hot springs. No longer will the man who wishes to taste the delights of mountain climbing need to be a mountaineer in the strictest sense of the word, ready to carry all his possessions in bis ruc-sae and sleep at nights in a rude shelter. He can now live in a truly modern hotel within easy reach of all this winter plaj - ground has to offer.

It is forty years since the triple peaks of Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngauruhoe lay under the interdict of tapu, sacred in the eyes of their Maori owners. Legends clustered thick around their cloud-capped peaks, peopled in the native imagination by multitudes of spirits which were heard howling among the winter storms of the region-wraiths inhabiting the curling banks of mist that take sudden form around the rocky pinnacles above the snow line. Fearing that the mountain,- made sacred by the graves of his ancestors along the northern slopes of Tongariro, would be sold in small portions to the white man, Te Heu Heu Tukino gave the territory to the Government “as a National Park, for the use of both the Maori and the Europeans.” According to legend an ancestral chief of Te Heu Heu’s tribe, Ngatoro-i-Rangi, had been frozen to death on the peaks of Ruapehu, whither he had climbed to view the country. He called to his gods/for aid, and from the north-west came rushing subterranean warming fires, which also broke through at White Island and Rotorua. DEVELOPING THE PARK Under the control of the National Park Board the area was extended in 1908 to nearly 150,000 acres, and was examined by Dr. L. Cockayne and by Mr. E. Phillips Turner, who made a topographical survey. The original barren area of jumbled peaks now forms but a small portion of the vast park, which has been extended slowly to include a diversity of scenery, silica springs, hot springs, graceful waterfalls, and virgin forest, not found in the Maori’s gift. The building of roads, tracks and bridges and the construction of clusters of small huts did much to popularise this resort, but it was realised in 1926 that the board itself could not for many years afford to provide accommodation in keeping with the importance of the park as a tourist centre. In December, 1928, the Tongariro Park Tourist Company took over a 42-year lease of 63 acres of the park, and here, in the centre of this icy wonderland, with an active volcano emitting dense clouds of smoke almost at its front door, has arisen the Dominion’s most up-to-date hotel—Chateau Tongariro. The lodge and the Whakapapa huts, which supplied accommodation in the past, have been redesigned to harmonise with the scheme. Set in a beech forest at the foot

of rugged Ruapehu, right in the heart of a desolate and almost uninhabited region, the chateau is at once a surprise and a joy to visitors. A huge impressive pile built in the Georgian style, flanked Dy a cold-blue sugarloaf peak, it is indeed an unexpected sight even in this land of surprises. It is equally delightful set in the greenery of summer or under winter’s mantle of snow.

Four storeys and a basement, all connected by an electric lift, go to make the Chateau unrivalled among the Dominion's hotels, and already it has set a new record in the serving of 475 dinners on one day. Its roof, of a rusty mellow colour, gives the building an appearance of dignified age and solidarity, which is belied only by its thoroughly modern equipment.

On either side of the wide entrance which leads direct into a spacious lounge are offices, with the reception and post office desks respectively. Broad and shallow terrazzo steps lead to a room of amazing elegance and luxury. Broad plate-glass windows frame the out-of-doors to the north, south and east, and to the west glass doors allow an uninterrupted view through the great dining room and its windows to the beech forest fringing the mountain slopes. The walls are of old ivory, the high ceiling supported by massive pillars, and, tljick and soft underfoot, is a many-shaded jade green carpet stretching from wall to wall. A finely-glazed parquet floor invites the dancers with its glistening smoothness.

The other three floors of the Chateau are in keeping with the magnificence of the general scheme, and the basement itself has by no means been neglected. It contains a cinema theatre, a barber’s shop with three chairs, a gymnasium, a children’s playroom, a large storeroom for guests’ luggage, a cafeteria, a garage, a laundry, a store for provisions, and a large sun room fitted with the new Vita glass used for curative treatment.

All three mountains can be scaled in single-day trips from the Chateau, and near at hand there are a variety if scenic beauties of which even the most blase tourist will never tire. Tracks lead to Silica Springs, and to the Taranaki Waterfall, a cascade 83ft. high. Pinnacle Rock, Whakapapanui Gorge, and the Tawhai Falls, near which is the famous “Haunted Whare,” are also reached easily. Then, 20 minutes’ walk from the Chateau, is the open snowfield —the skier’s paradise. —C.R.