Society's Tongariro Lodge Serves First National Park

Forest and Bird, Issue 298, 1 November 2000, Page 42

Society's Tongariro Lodge Serves First National Park

—Gordon Ell

Mountain’ means only one place — Ruapehu — the winter playground of people from Auckland to Wellington who like to slide down mountains on bits of wood. The occasional eruptions of this great volcano are salutary reminders that this is one of the great wild places of New Zealand, not to be blithely diminished as a winter playground. Forest and Bird’s lodge at Whakapapa, just beyond the village and the Chateau, is well-known to skiing members but is better value in the warmer months when it makes a great base for exploring Tongariro National Park. This World Heritage Area covers nearly 80,000 hectares surrounding the chain of volcanoes gathered at the centre of the North Island. The Forest and Bird lodge is close to park headquarters and a range of transport operators who service track ends throughout the park. This is one park where the traditional summer programme (December 27January 9 or thereabouts) still survives. Surprisingly, bookings at the Forest and Bird Lodge around [: the North Island, "The The Society’s Tongariro Lodge offers inexpensive bunkroom accommodation, a big kitchen, hot showers, drying room and a vista of beech forest and mountain. Walks and park trips begin from nearby Whakapapa Village, the park headquarters.

this time, are fairly light. (Two of us shared an eight-bunk room, while other rooms stood empty.) Before Christmas, and outside the school holidays, the lodge is often nearly empty. He. Or the = major charms of Tongariro National Park is the range of things to do, from near-level walks to demanding routes around the mountains. The Lodge offers a base which should appeal to most ages and activity levels because of the range of recreational opportunities nearby. Whakapapa is a popular centre with interesting beech forest and tussock grasslands walks close to the Lodge, and longer loops and trails to such places as the Silica Springs (a volcanic feature), the Tama Lakes (craters lying in the saddle between Ruapehu and ‘Tongariro/Ngauruhoe), and the Taranaki Falls (passing through heathlands where fernbirds call). Whakapapa is also the pickup point for transport to guided walks such as those offered by the Department of Conservation at midsummer (to points all round the mountains, this year including specialised bush walks near Ohakune, climbing or clambering round neighbouring volcanic cones, horse-riding. bird-watching, looking for kaka or blue duck, and enjoying alpine wildflowers.) Further conveniences of Whakapapa are its proximity to the Top of the Bruce, or Iwikau skiing village on Mount Ruapehu, from where ski lifts now operate in summer, carrying visitors to the alpine zone with its wildflowers and interesting plants, and the opportunity of a guided walk to the crater of Ruapehu itself. You can also catch buses at Whakapapa for longer walks

elsewhere in the park. (This saves leaving vehicles at track ends to be stripped by thieves, and also allows undertaking one-way walks with pick up by buses at the other end.)

Bookings for the Tongariro Lodge may be made through the central office of Forest and Bird (see Lodges, page 49 for details).

Tongariro Crossing, often described as the ‘Finest One-Day Walk in the World’ (7-8 hours). And it is superb, particularly on a clear day. (I have been snowed off the top ridge at New Year in a blizzard, and sunburnt in shorts a day or two later.) The 17-kilometre walk usually starts in the Maungatepopo Valley, with a steep, rocky clamber onto the saddle between Ngauruhoe and the multi-cratered top of Tongariro itself. The trail passes across a flat crater, then onto a long ridge which provides sweeping vistas across the Rangipo Desert to the central North Island. The red and black rocks of Red Crater still steam while the small Emerald Lakes below make a memorable lunch place. Across a further crater, and around the broad waters of Blue Lake, the track leads onto the tussocked flanks of the upper mountain. The long descent passes close to the roaring steam vents of Ketetahi Springs, down to the bush line, and through Hall’s totara forest to the roadhead far below. — Gordon Ell T= classic walk in Tongariro National Park is the