New boardwalk nearly 1km up mountain

Mt Pirongia is the tallest mountain in the Waikato. Photo / NZ Herald

It is one of the Waikato's most mysterious landmarks, where the fairy-like Patupaiarehe ("people of the mists") are said to watch weary travellers.

It is now also site of one of the country's longest and highest boardwalks and part of a 3000km national walking trail just a year out from completion.

The 18km Mt Pirongia Track covers one of Tainui's most sacred places and includes an 800m-long mountaintop boardwalk almost 1km in the air.

At its opening yesterday, Prime Minister John Key said he liked tramping but probably not as much as his predecessor, Helen Clark.

Mr Key said the walkway - with the national cycle trail - would help to cater for the 2 million tourists who visit New Zealand every year.

"Certainly from a tourism point of view we are seeing increasing numbers of international tourists who want to come and do these sorts of walks as well as New Zealanders.

"When you think about it, we get about 2 million tourists a year and when you add it all up it is our largest export earner."

More than 2700km of the track, Te Araroa, the brainchild of Geoff Chapple who proposed the idea of a national walkway in the mid-1990s, has been completed over the past 10 years. He has walked all 3000km, often across trackless forests and producing a blog en route.

He said a further 15 sections of Te Araroa throughout the country, spanning about 300km, were on course to be completed by next November.

Mr Chapple said Te Araroa was a means for New Zealanders to reconnect with their history.

"It takes you through the culture of New Zealand and helps people to better understand things."

The $400,000 Mt Pirongia track, which received half its funding from private sources and the rest from the Department of Conservation, took three years to make and involved Year 12 carpentry students from Hamilton schools, who worked in deep mud to put the first sections in place.

This proved too slow, so 120 prefab sections were constructed offsite and airlifted on to the mountain. An RNZAF Iroquois was also used to fly in 900kg loads of timber and building materials.

The traditional name of the mountain is "Pirongia te aroaro o Kahu" meaning "the fragrant presence of Kahu", his wife. Its peak, Hihikiwi, means "to shudder or shiver". The peak is one of the homes of the legendary Patupaiarehe.