New Zealand's Great Tramps

@Mathew What was it about the trip that put you off for a few years? That strikes a chord because my first trip was as a 13 year old in the Whirinaki. It poured the whole time and, of the actual hiking, I hated it. But something about it hooked me as well.

Grew up in Upper Hutt, and began tramping as a 13 year old in the southern Tararuas. The Tararuas are often stated as the "Home of tramping" Was never in a club, just went with school mates. Did meet plenty of tramping club parties in the Tauherenikau valley then in trips to Alpha, Mt Holdsworth, Totara Flats. First tramp into the Tauherenikau valley wasn't that hard. Did end up helping in 2 stretcher carries of injured trampers though. Enjoyed every minute of it, and couldn't wait to get sport out of the way every weekend, to get into the hills. Or leave school early to catch the 4pm railcar to the Wairarapa There was a tradition of going into these huts on Friday nights, for further tramper over the weekend. Used to spend Friday nights with bushman Joe Gibbs (builder of Field and Kime)at Tauherenikau or Alloway Dickson. Clubs parties probably thought we were just more hoons that used to frequent the Tauherenikau ("Tauherenikau Cowboys"). Probably didn't realize it at the time, but came to appreciate the culture of tramping and club role in tramping, developing the Tararuas etc There always was a very strong Tramping club presence then, from wellington mostly. I think a lot of that is disappearing, probably because members are getting older and most clubs are struggling for members. Used to do the Southern Crossing, Main range, Mid Waiohine, upper waingawa by 15, and had own rifle then, so it became hunting trips mainly Spent many crowded nights in huts like Alpha, Vossler, Totara Flats. But hunting trips were in more remote spots and only met trampers along the Main Range, Northern Crossing. Did a lot of solo trips, and met many Forest service deer culling parties, who probably thought I shouldn't be there, alone. But think they inspired me to get the same job Favourite trips were the Main Range, Northern Crossing, Mid Waiohine. Being at college, usually got to roadends before most club trips. Did used to meet other college kids, Graeme Dingle and co, who became the next generation of club members I guess. I probably travelled nearly every track in the range while at college. I did hunting trips on the West Coast instead of Tararuas in some holidays and eventually left college and joined the forest service as a culler, first in Ruahines then back to the Tararuas, which I thought was Home. Theres a heritage of tramping that developed in the Tararuas, that I think is becoming unknown and we now have a generation that think its Hiking and Kathmandu is where you shop. (Hikers version of Pagani perhaps) The Tararuas were probably the most used range by trampers, in the country, and at the time, seemed bit crowded in places. Now, its not so bad. I do avoid the main tramping routes on holidays though. That's all changed with Great Walks etc, and other high use tracks like Dart-Reese, etc. These were places Wellington clubs did their Christmas holiday trips to - used to meet them on the Ferry to Christchurch when going hunting in the holidays. Now I think those places are ruined, as remote destinations, and wouldn't be bothered with them. The Tararuas and Ruahines are far more attractive, and the Ruahines. And the remote places on the west coast or Fiordland and some of Canterbury provide as scenery as good as any of the "tourist tracks" but still present a challenge. so my idea of Great tramps are definitely any of the nelson lakes, southern Lakes, Fiordland tourist tracks. Long as theres places like the Tararuas or west coast to go to, having "Hikers" all concentrated on the popular walks is fine with me. More kiwis in the bush is a good thing and many will progress to become more experienced. But many probably wont really understand what the original culture of tramping was about, though. Bit like hunters, who only fly into remote places, hunt a bit and fly out. At other times shoot on back of the local farm, and never really experience our amazing wilderness, the hard way.

too many foreigners are fast turning some of my favourite tramps into the worst because of the publicity surrounding them on places like the internet

You should mostly blame Tourism NZ who is pouring millions of $ in marketing in other countries to tell people to come here and experience the outdoors… NZ is sold as an holiday destination just like the Caribbean islands for example. In 2016 NZ govt gave $45 millions additional funding to tourism marketing, while cutting DOC budget by $40 millions… The tourists are not the ones who are voting for that kind of decisions…

Tourism is the second or third biggest earner of money for NZ Like it or not the alternatives to tourism are even more unpleasant. Try being able to tramp every day of the week because your job disappeared. (nearly every industry in NZ benifits at least indirectly from tourism Even farming) (without income the govt would also have to cut dole) or National Parks being opened up to logging and more dairying. We might not like the current level of tourism but the choices aint good either

My concern is that classic tramps like the Inland Pack Track and the Wangapeka track are being neglected. A new Great Walk is all very well, But these classics are part of our heritage. My first tramp: I'll write it up.

DOC don't have the money to look after heritage tracks, they are being directed to pour most of their money into the money earners and a select few flagship tracks. its maintain your own tracks now.... lou sanson was talking in a listener article they are looking at having "great day walks" and looking at setting up more great walks up north. closer to the main population... thats the future of DOC tracks.... and how they are going to charge people more for tracks and on more tracks... the tararuas has kissed goodbye to various tracks and a few huts, they would have lost a lot more huts if it wasnt for ex NZFS taking over maintenance of them. not much surprises me under the National govt. the DOC is nothing but a cash cow or the tourism industry to them, they'll do the bare minimum to avoid outraging the bulk of the population, like shy away from mining on the most highly valued DOC land, but everything else is open season, they'd have roads and theme park rides going through the national parks if they could.... heritage value in the parks means absolutely nothing to this govt... how many members of the national party govt spend time in the national park recreating? when they designiated west coast land for mining simon bridges didnt even know it included a lot of DOC land.... it was just some area on a map that they could legally designate for mining , so they designated a large chunk of victoria forest parks and other DOC areas..... you want to save your heritage track? you may have to do it yourself and or fight to have it saved reverance for nature means nothing to them. the kaimais is being developed at the moment and i dont think any DOC staff are involved in redeveloping over 100km of trails there... its all volunteers putting in a lot of their weekends....

"the tararuas has kissed goodbye to various tracks and a few huts, they would have lost a lot more huts if it wasnt for ex NZFS taking over maintenance of them." Just on this, is it the greatest example? Maybe other forum members can comment. The Tararuas had masses of endorsed tracks from the NZFS days, but much of that was for an era and purposes that don't really exist any more. Modern day Tararuas are still much more tracked (officially) than they probably were in, for example, the 1930s. It's usually a shame losing huts and I'm wary of that happening, but do all those tracks in the midst of obscurity still need to be endorsed and maintained by DOC staff? At least in the Tararuas, if there's somewhere worth going, people usually just go there anyway via paths of least resistance. They probably mark it themselves, maybe a volunteer group puts some effort in, and ground trails stick around with or without DOC's help. "they'll do the bare minimum" Governments are elected for a complex range of reasons. Only a small amount of that has anything to do with the conservation estate, and so I think it's important to always try to work with the current government on issues like this rather than rely on trying to change it. Changing the government relies on having a credible opposition who people will actually vote for, after which that opposition still needs to see Conservation policy the way you do. I agree with the bare minimum thing, though. It's just been a total do-nothing government. Policy has been to ignore warnings, and only make changes to anything when absolutely forced to do so. I guess we'll see how a Bill English's government goes, but I think Danyl McLauchlan's analysis of the Key-led government is spot-on: "It’s frustrating, given Key’s obvious political genius, that he only addressed it to winning at the superficial elements of politics: raising money, winning elections, mocking the opposition as it self-destructed, getting good coverage, being popular. Understanding the game and then beating it. To me the most quintessential Key policy is his reform of the Emissions Trading Scheme: Key and his Trade Minister found a brilliant way to rort the international carbon trading system, buying hundreds of millions of dollars of quasi-legal Russian and Ukrainian carbon credits. It was an ingenious way to prevent New Zealand from having to reduce our carbon emissions, which would have lead to all sorts of reforms and costs that might have compromised Key’s popularity. "Now some other sucker will have to deal with carbon neutrality and climate proofing our infrastructure, along with fixing the sustainability of the superannuation scheme, and low productivity, and child poverty, and the broken housing market, and the broken tax system, and the cost blowout of our aging population on the health system, and so on; Key gets to retire with all of the political capital he accumulated through evading all of those problems intact. John Key won at politics. Good for him. But another few winners like that and we’re done for." http://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/16-12-2016/the-four-john-keys-you-meet-when-he-governs-your-country/

the tararuas of all places should have as many huts and tracks as you can maintain, its a high use are given the high population density with a large no of trampers walkers living around the ranges. DOC has started recently admitting they don't have enough infrastructure where the main NZ population live, the south island is spoilt for choice. some parts of the north island are too but a lot of it is under developed or starting to be neglected...