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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 5 (August 2, 1937)

The Tongariro national Park

page 29

The Tongariro national Park

(Rly. Publicity photo.) The Chateau Tongario, with Mt. Ngauruhoe in the background.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Chateau Tongario, with Mt. Ngauruhoe in the background.

With the introduction of the five-day, 40-hour week into our national life comes the necessity for something in the nature of moral, social and physical uplift to fill the idle hours—especially for the dwellers in our cities.

Like the Psalmist, David, to many of us come these words: “I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Many eyes will be turned to the Tongariro National Park as a possible source of aid in this direction. The value of the park lies in its accessibility, as a week-end Mecca for the workers in the cities and main towns of the North Island. Tongariro National Park lies within a very few miles of the Main Trunk Line, and it is an easy matter for those who wish to visit this great pleasure ground to leave Auckland or Wellington by the “Limited,” on Friday evening and arrive at the Chateau for breakfast on Saturday. The return trip may be made in the same comfortable manner on the Sunday evening in ample time for the commencement of the week's work on Monday. Two whole days of glorious, care-free existence on the “Roof of the North Island!”

In brief, let me write of the joys of this alpine wonderland. The luxuriously appointed and friendly Chateau forms the base for numerous trips. Firstly, for those whose physical handicaps bar them from serious tramping, I might mention the Silica Springs —a delightful three-mile walk through grand tawhai (beech) forests and over flower-carpeted glens and sparkling alpine torrents with exquisite glimpses of majestic Ruapehu rearing her virgin snow peaks into the blue; Tawhai Falls and the Haunted Whare with its quaint legend of the dusky Maori maiden who peeps in at the window during the midnight hour; Taranaki Falls flashing an 83 feet of scintillating waters over the ancient lava flow; Matariki Falls, far below in the valley, a twinkling star in a setting of sombre green; the Tama Lakes, twin circlets of ultra-marine, nestling at the foot of brooding Ngauruhoe; Ketetahi Valley, on the northern slopes of Tongariro, a satanic gulch of blowholes, eerie mud-pools, boiling cauldrons, sulphur vents, geysers, and weird noises. I mention but a few of the many wonderful sights to be seen in this region.

For the more ardent climber the park offers the ascents of the main peaks. Tongariro, the mountain of contrasts, the lonely mountain tarn and the torn and jagged craters, belching sulphur from numerous vents. There are the alpine flower gardens, and, impressing most, the jumble of ancient lava flows, red and black, as if they had cooled but yesterday; the grim, sullen Ngauruhoe with its 5,000 feet of scrambling scoria screes which try the mettle of even the best of alpinists, the view into the crater, perhaps quiescent, perhaps venting forth poisonous vapours or billowing smoke, but always impressing with thoughts of the vast powers held in leash within its slumbering bosom. Lastly Ruapehu, the Queen of the Park, the playground of the gods, awaits the climber; 9,000 feet of rock climb, of virgin snowface, of lofty peak and minaret, of gleaming glacier, rent and plumbed by crevasse and ice-cave, and from the summit one of the finest views in the world—the Crater Lake, a lake of torrid heat in its frigid hollow of ice-cliff and glacier neve.

For the sports enthusiast the park caters liberally. Ski-ing, tobogganing and glissading on wonderful snow-fields, fishing in the finest trout waters in the world, deer-stalking within a mile of the Park boundary, and golf and tennis amidst such refreshing surroundings.

There is no feeling like that of complete healthy exhaustion, no thrill like that of conquest by one's own efforts and no fellowship to equal the goodwill of these uplands. To the seeker after recreation, inspiration or recuperation, the Tongariro National Park is the end of the Rainbow, Nature's answer to quest for peace in a turbulent world.

page 30