Norm Watson departs the park

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 29, 10 December 1985, Page 33

Norm Watson departs the park

Norm Watson, senior ranger at Tongariro National Park Headquarters at Whakapapa, is leaving the mountain after seven challenging years — five of them at Whakapapa and two at Ohakune. Norm has been given a year's special leave without pay and is going to live at . Red Beach, Orewa, where he will be looking after his two children, Kasimir, 9, and Carma, 6, while working part-time. The nature of a mountain ranger's life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, makes child care for one person impossible, which is one of the main reasons for his departurfe, along with an urge to live by the beach again, and to give his children some time with their grandparents. Norm values the time he has spent at Tongariro National Park. "You really get thrown in at the deep end here, a lot is expected of you. You could be on a rescue on your first day and there are just so many different things you have to do," he said. Norm has found himself working at tasks which may not be thought of as part of a ranger's job, including councillor, ambulance officer, engineering consultant, public speaker and financial forecaster. GENERALIST "You come out of here as a generalist, not a specialist," he said. As with any experience Norm has had his highs and lows. He remembers with amusement the time he got a three month-old baby almost to the crater lake.

"I was leading a group of about 1 50 people up to the lake during the summer programme a couple of years ago when just near the top I got a real shock to hear a baby cry. "I had noticed a woman with a fat tummy before and now I realised she had a baby under her coat, about three months old. "She was the French wife of a relieving Raetihi doctor and both she and her husband had a burning desire to get to the lake and this was her only way." HUNGRY The baby was hungry so she had to sit down on the ridge and breast feed while Norm gave her a pair of leggings to keep the baby warm in the chill wind which had blown up. "As we had a 75 year-old man up there we can now say anyone between three months and 75 can get to the crater lake, though we don't recommend babies because they don't have a fully developed cardio-vaseular system," he said. Norm has a great love for the Tongariro National Park and believes that carey is needed in developing the area with sensitivity. "There are huge commercial pressures now and I believe we have to examine developments very carefully, to keep the emphasis on preservation, such as making sure revegetation is carried outby developers. "This park is the leader in New Zealand's park system and needs to set an example," he said. Norm is distressed at the disregard for the environment shown by many skiers. "They come here to ski and see the area as a winter playground, not as a national park as well."

Litter is an enormous problem now on the skifields and is even blown into the back country. Norm feels that we need more education and perhaps even some compulsion on this, as in Japan and Canada, to keep the park clean. He has the highest of compliments for Chief Ranger Bruce Jeffries, who he said had introduced a new management system for the park which used the park's human resources much more fully than before. "He is very good at emphasising the positive features of the park, he has introduced some good ideas such as the travellers' information radio station and ihrough his interest the relationship between the volun-

teer ski patrol and the Department of Lands and Survey was formalised," he said. "His professional management has a big impact on the park," he said. The appointment of a landscape architect to the park — a first for New Zealand — has really impressed Norm. "We need to look at simple things like car parks and make them look good and to have more of an appreciation of the aesthetics of what we do. "It's common in overseas parks but just starting here." Among his low points, Norm remembers particularly the tragedies of the helicopter crash which killed several rangers and the fatal car crash involving the Ital-

ian ski team as being the rock-bottom times. He also recalls the physical and emotional strain of rescue, such as when he went out to feed and assess the Avondale College party earlier this year, and the instance a few weeks ago when Reporoa College students were airlifted out with hypothermia. "I was co-ordinating the rescue and we were short of staff — no one to receive them and we had to get doctors, nurses and blankets from the Chateau — it was tough..." Over the next 12 months Norm plans to pursue an interest he has in tree surgery, where skilled highlevel pruning can maintain the shape of trees. Norm

studied in Christchurch to be an "approved pruner" which allows him to work on important trees there. He also intend to do some voluntary work for St Johns Ambulance and to do some writing. At the end of his year of leave he hopes to come back as a ranger but not in a national park where the demands are too high to combine with child care. "There are also reserves and historic parks where things are a little steadier," he said. Norm's main regret is that he has not seen Ruapehu erupting. Many may not share his regret, but he hastened to add that he was thinking of a "little one" so he could update his talk!