TONGARIRO RIVER TRAIL

Image below of the volunteer maintenance team at work on the Tongariro River Trail.  Apologies if they and their good work are difficult to recognise with the dappled effects from the sunny day peeping through the foliage.

If you know the bike trail, there are some concrete steps leading from the Red Hut car park down to the swing bridge.  So these blokes were building a bike ramp or runaway along the inside adjoining the cliff face to make it much easier for bikers to wheel bikes – instead of bouncing off the steps.

But there is much more to it than that…

First the bad news:

Why hasn’t DOC done this maintenance years go?  They stick up their signs everywhere and claim to manage the track…

(Poor old DOC – they are getting a hammering everywhere in the public arena at present what with 1080 etc.  In Turangi they have a much more prominent and public role being the managers of the Taupo trout fishery and involved with trying to manage the other notable complete shambles at the Tongariro Crossing over the last decade.)

Where are the Council who are always looking for brownie points for their bike trail?  They refer anything to do with bikes to Bike Taupo – their club.

So where is Bike Taupo who administer all bike trails in the Toe-paw region?

All AWOL..    In their absence it is left to local volunteers like Darryl and Gary to attend to tourist issues with steps and fix problems with access.  Even then, one of their biggest problem is gaining permission to improve the track.  Sometimes they just have to go ahead regardless…

Meanwhile, these others – who are paid for this via our rates or taxes – all just “pass the buck” when it comes to the real work.

Tourists using this Tongariro River Trail – both walkers, bikers and that other strange species, called “anglers”, will never appreciate how fortunate we all are in having good local people like Darryl and Gary (and others) who volunteer their time and equipment and expenses to keep tracks like this up to scratch.

We do not know how the local bureaucracy works.  Building the tracks is one thing but the ongoing maintenance is usually even more testing.

Everywhere on the trial you will see DOC (Department of Conservation) signage.  They might “claim” the track management after it is built but it is left to local volunteers to do all the hard graft.

When you realise the trouble and time it takes to get ‘official’ approval to do anything associated with DOC and Council, we have to wonder how these track extensions every got built in the first place?  In Turangi we just have to go ahead and fix the obvious without official approval – otherwise it will never get done at all.

Which brings me on to the ‘good’ news.  You may not be aware that the original anglers access tracks were built by prison labour about 100 years ago.  The prison is just over the hill where they are looking for suitable projects like track building and track maintenance.  The development of bike trails are considered ideal as a form of rehabilitation projects before release.

About ten years ago we held meetings with Department of Corrections who wanted to help in any way they could including generously offering access over their land – conveniently located along the eastern banks of the upper Tongariro River – but they also offered the hard labour – work team – to develop further bike trails.  All pick axe and shovel and clearing bush etc. with a wheelbarrow.  Obviously far too difficult for DOC or Council.

These would extend the Tongariro River Trail much further south to eventually link up with existing tracks between the Pillars of Hercules and Tree Trunk Gorge.  These are also ‘managed’ by DOC.

So the project is not building new tracks but extending existing tracks to link up…

But Council can only find funds to develop new tracks or extend tracks at their northern end of the lake – where the votes are…

They then apply to MBIE – another government department which has funded most of the tourist bike trails throughout NZ – for funds for their bike club trails but have neglected to recognise Turangi’s trails.  Turangi have been very patient but ten years later…

Can you believe that despite Corrections Department offering free land access and free work gangs as project development and management teams, nothing more has been done.

DOC will blame Council; Council will ‘delegate’ it to Bike Taupo – their local bike club.  But they are only concerned with Club tracks at the northern end of Lake Taupo.  Naturally – quite understandable!  But where does that leave Turangi?  Relying on volunteer labour… as you can see.

So now you can understand why nothing gets done unless persistent little website blogs and annoying facebooks continue whining on about the injustice of it all to bring it to the attention of the public.  Councils and Government Departments must hate that…