Tongariro National Park

What's a b-

When I, when I first started hunting, uh, Tongariro National Park-

Tongariro? Oh, yeah

... was my, was my go-to.

Um, I hunt a lot in Galatea, uh, it's south of Te Urewera-

So the other thing I love about Abigail Hannah, my website, is you can also search for our podcast.

So if there's any topics that you're interested in from past episodes, whether it's Tongariro or mountain biking or kayaking or skiing, like whatever you're interested in, you can search those things.

You can also search people's names, whatever, whatever.

You can search anything.

I would have loved to have done something, and there weren't any, and perhaps that showed because I did have a couple of things happen later on with the Boys Town kids, which I can talk about.

So what happened was in the school holidays, I'd organise a programme of trips for different age groups, and for the teenagers, I decided I'd take them off to the Tongariro Crossing, which in those days wasn't a famous walk.

Nobody really knew about it except the local ranger staff or tramping clubs.

I'd been there myself.

It was the first time any machinery had been taken into the park.

Shock, horror, but now tracks just probably aren't built without diggers.

And talking to Roy Gross, who's also now retired, but he was a young ranger at Tongariro National Park who did a lot of track work there, and he talked about how he would lie awake at night worrying about the pumice on their tracks eroding at Tongariro National Park, how difficult it was to make those tracks stable.

And then we move forward to now and we have the likes of Hamish Seaton, who's the guru of dual-purpose tracks that have come along, the Old Ghost Road and Paparao Track, who uses computer modelling and aerial imaging and fancy stuff like that to set the line, the grade of the track.

Yeah, and then like in New Zealand we've got exposure, we've got tree fall, we've got mountain weather.

I know like, um, working with some of those races down in Tongariro National Park, um, some of the gear, like you have pretty high level for compulsory gear.

But you'll see people that are showing up in those tiny little jackets that can fold up into the size of your palm of your hand, like a little rubbish bag that'll flap around in the wind, and if the weather comes in and you need an extraction, it's gonna be a carrier.

It's not a helicopter if it's cloudy, and you've got, you know, s- mountain weather-

Either of my favourite three.

Tongariro, Ngarahoe, or actually I'm about to name four.

Ruapehu or Taranaki.

Rank them.

road?

It's fourth.

Because Tongariro is the oldest, and you've got to respect the elders.

Of course.

And the Department of Conservation has unveiled the country's revised World Heritage Tentative, featuring nine locations considered to have significance extending beyond New Zealand, including Auckland's volcanic fields.

New Zealand currently has three World Heritage sites, Tongariro National Park, Te Wahi Pounamu and the sub-Antarctic Islands.

And Conservation Department International Manager Sarah Meadows claims the newly selected sites show strong potential.

The UNESCO designation is reserved for sites considered to have outstanding universal value, according to Meadows.