Following fading footsteps

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 4, Issue 32, 27 January 1987, Page 11

Following fading footsteps

Noel Shepherd of Ohakune searches for the trail of John Mulgan's fictitious wanted man. Noel is a guide in the Tongariro National Park.

I was at High School when I first read John Mulgan's "Man Alone" and have since regarded it as the finest New Zealand novel written. The novel has some unusual features. It has a skeleton-bare, stark narrative. This simple style is able to describe accurately the uncomplicated life of the twenties and the growing social awareness of the thirties. It is also able to describe the lonely landscapes of New Zealand and especially of the central North lsland. This latter aspect had significance for me because of family ties with Mount Ruapehu and the town of Ohakune, both of which Mulgan describes convincingly. The highlight of "Man Alone" for me is the escape of the character Johnson over Ruapehu and the Kaimanawas into Hawke's Bay. Twenty years after 1 first read "Man Alone" 1 was able to recreate John's trek with a solo walk from Ohakune to Puketitiri. The fictional character Johnson was on the run from the law during the depression. He had left a valley from somewhere nea'r Ohakune (possibly the Ruatiti or Mangaeturoa valleys) after a struggle in which his boss had been killed by a shotgun blast. Johnson was hurriedly and inadequately equipped for his trek with a bag of flour and oatmeal, tea, salt, a hand-axe and a .22 rifle. Let me use Mulgan's words to describe the early part of Johnson's journey: "He was making for the Kaimanawas, the great range that ran southward like a backbone to the island, its ridges trim and bleak and forbidding, the peaks snow covered in winter ... he turned off and took a road that dwindled to a bush track, leading he knew, to Ruapehu itself." The route 1 followed started on the Ohakune Mountain Road, now the access road for the Turoa Skifield. After seven kilometres 1 left the road and followed Blyth Track, Listen to Mulgan: "The track ran steeply through tall bush at first and then through bush which shrank gradually to stunted shrubs and mountain grasses. He followed it up to where the snowline came

down in winter, but it was May now and only the ice of glaciers was left higher up." "Mist swirled in the valleys on either side of the ridge he rode, hiding sometimes all but the track he followed, and sometimes breaking to reveal glimpses of rock and ice high above him. He came out, at length, where the last trees died away to a hut of corrugated iron, built for mountaineers and sheltered in a cleft of the ridge." Ohakune Mountain Hut was built in the years immediately prior to I921,mainly by T.A. Blyth, headmaster of Ohakune District High School, and in later years

became known as Blyth Hut. The original iron structure was burnt down in 1975 and replaced by a modern lodge on a site more distant from the Ohakune Mountain Road. Johnson was not alone at Blyth Hut. "The two young men that heard him and came to the door embarrassed Johnson. They were trampers going over the mountain in the dead season before the snows came, young men from college, he guessed in football jerseys and shorts and striped stockings." Was this Mulgan with a friend? 1 was fascinated by the accuracy of Mulgan's description of Blyth Track and was sure he must have stayed at Blyth Hut. Several weeks after my

journey 1 made some inquiries as to the whereabouts of early hut visitors books. A helpful girl on the staff of the Tongariro National Park at Whakapapa found some early Ohakune Mountain Hut logbooks, including the first, from February 1921 to March 1930. 1 spent an engrossed morning reading of early trips to Blyth Hut and the peaks of Ruapehu by a surprisihgly large number of international visitors as well as local climbers (294 from October 1925 to May 1926), including my own mother, uncles and neighbours from Ohakune. Nearly all of these trips were guided by the late

T. A. Blyth or other members of his family. Johhston's trek strted in May, and when 1 reached May 1929 1 found what 1 had been lodking for, the signature of J. A. E. Mulgan. The log entry is in Mul-

gan's hand. At the age of seventeen he already has a succinct style: — "14th to 23rd May W. A. Doherty Victoria College. J. A. E. Mulgan, Auckland Grammar." "Arrived in the rain about 1.30pm Tuesday, 14th. Weather cleared after two days and remained fine. Climbed Ruapehu Friday 17th. Visited Mangaturuturu and Mangaheuheu rivers. Returned Ohakune afternoon of May 23rd." It is interesting that Mulgan and Doherty were not guided on their ascent of Ruapehu as was usual in that era. The discovery of the log entry was hugely exciting for me. The beauty of Ruapehu must have made a deep impression on Mulgan, as "Man Alone" was not written until 1939. Continued next week