The last man on earth

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 4, Issue 34, 10 February 1987, Page 11

The last man on earth

NOEL SHEPHERD continues his trek across the centre of the North Island, following the trail of the fictitious character "Johnson" from John Mulgan's hook, "Man Alone." Noel operates a guiding service in the Tongariro National Park.

"This was real bush that he was going into now, not the mountain-bush of birchtrees that he had seen on Ruapehu, but deep. thick and matted. great trees going up to the sky, and beneath them a tangle of ferns and bush lawyer and undergrowth, the ground heavy with layers of rotting leaves and mould." "There was a heaviness of the bush that pressed upon him, and weighed him down, until the sound of his own voice was startling to him." Eventually he moved on. "He followed the river down for days that lengthened into weeks. Journeying in the darkness of the bush he could not tell what progress he was making and seldom the direction that he travelled." Johnson planned to leave the hills "in the eastern province of the island" but here we have a mystery. The east-flowing rivers in this mountain system are what I came to think of as 'upside-down rivers', in that the river valleys are open tussock and swamp plains. with bush and scrub on the ridges. The upper reaches of the Rangitikei have bush to the water's edge, but the Rangitikei would bring Johnson back to civilisation near Taihape, only thirty miies from where he went into the bush. The fictitious character Johnson did Mulgan's Kaimanawa trip for him. 1 am convinced that the author did not come this way. My trek took me into the Ngaruroro River system via the Mangamingi Saddle, and on to a welcome scheduled rest day at Boyd Lodge. This is the nicest of the 16-bed lodges that 1 have been to, with a balcony ver^ andah and a great view to the east down the Ngaruroro. lt also has a grass air-

True, the western side of the Kaimanawas does support isolated pockets of podocarps and hardwoods, but the predominant bush cover is beech. Waipakahi Hut was my destination that night. This is one of a series of modern and well-sited 16-bunk huts strip. and many deer hunters and trout fishermen fly into Boyd's. The American couple 1 met there had flown in with an ample supply of luxuries. For them Boyd's was the back of beyond, complete with a wild hunter who supplied them with meals of rice and venison. For my part Boyd's was a paradise of chocolate biscuits with wine and beer. We shared our supplies and conversation until late into the night.

built by the Kaimanawa Forest Park for public use. I had a huge meal of venison back steaks, shared with a not-so-fortunate fellow hunter, and was into an early bed. On my fourth day I made an early start. "He had to climb after that to get over the first heights of the range that ran up six thousand feet high, and he did this after two week's journeying (??) going up again to a country of bare rock and lichen and down again to a great valley beyond that fell steeply two thousand feet."

1 had a hard day's tramping on the tops. A southerly was blowing at speeds 1 estimated to be up to forty knots, strong enough to topple a man off the ridges. At the same time hoar-frost was building up in sheltered places. One of the cardinal rules of New Zealand back country tramping is "Always travel with a friend", a rule that should not be flouted lightly. 1 am an experienced tramper, very fit and well equipped. but a solo trip in this sort of country could be disastrous. Had this not been a re-enactment of Johnson's "Man Alone" trek, I too would have been tramping with a friend. Where tracks exist in this part of the Kaimanawas, they are rudimentary affairs. Often travel on the tops is along unmarked ridge routes, with accurate map and compass work an essential part of safe travel. However, the rewards of all this hard work are truely worthwhile. The hidden valleys of the Rangitikei headwaters are magnificent. The trout fishing is among the best in the country, as is the hunting. To walk alone along the top of the Island Range is to feel you are the last man on earth. Much of this land in the centre of the Kaimanawas is Maori land or privatelyowned land. Although tramping on published routes is allowed, permission to carry a rifle should be sought from Air Charter Taupo, at Taupo Airport. Johnson spent three months in this country. living in a cave deep in a river valley. To be continued