Saga of the mountain road

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 22, 22 October 1985, Page 20

Saga of the mountain road

Part 3 Attempts to build a road, rather than just a track, up the mountain from Ohakune began seriously in 1934. In the late I940s the Government got a preliminary engineer's report on two possible road routes, the Mangaturuturu Valley via Horopito, and the Blyth Track. With the report done, the Government said there was no money to build a road in the foreseeable future, so it declined to release the engineer's findings. So the local community decided once again to go it alone. In 1952 an Ohakune deputation put a road plan to the Tongariro National Park Board, and the Mountain Road Association was formed after a public meeting.

PLEDGES

The association sought 100 people to pledge $10 each so work could start, using voluntary labour at weekends, mostly in the drier summer and autumn months. The founders expected to build a mile of road a vear. Association president Max Gould's first annual repor' mentioned the disruptions caused by poor summer weather — and recorded that about two miles o* road had been formed. . . The second summer sav another 1.5 miles built, a^d by 1955 the road was metalled almost to the threemile marker and construction had reached Reid's Creek. Bridging the creek was a big job, one that was even-

tually done by the army. In 1962 the National Roads Board agreed to take responsibility for the road as far as the Mangawhero Falls, and at the same time the Government came up with a £2500 grant to help the association. Blasting rocks, smothering thick ash under truck loads of sawmill slabs, association members inched the road through the difficult section past the falls.

TERMINUS

in the summer of 1966-67 it reached its present terminus. Bad scouring and erosion forced further work, but in 1973 the full 16km length of the Ohakune Mountain Road was declared a legal road. Material for articles on the mountain road was taken from a dissertation prepared by John Lythgoe, senior ranger at Wanganui River Reserve and former ranger at Tongariro National Park, for his Diploma of Parks and Recreation at Lincoln College.