Outdoors: Rush slowly into paradise

By COLIN MOORE

Sometimes at the end of a hard day's mahi (work) Toney and Shelly Christensen pack a flask of hot chocolate and ride a quad bike to their special spot to watch the sunset.

It is one of the finest panoramas in the country. To the west are the Tongariro Forest and the headwaters of the Whanganui River. The peaks of Maungaku and Maungakatote rise over the Pukepoto and Rotoaira Forests.

To the north is Lake Rotoaira, Lake Taupo, the bush-clad summits of Kakaramea, Tihia and Pihanga; to the east the mighty Kaimanawa Ranges.

And at their backs is the bulk of Mt Tongariro, lord of the central North Island mountains.

The spot is so spectacular, particularly when autumn sunsets blaze, that one of the country's most luxurious lodges wanted to take its high-paying guests there by helicopter for champagne picnics and sundowners.

The Christiansens demurred. To get to this place above the bushline and sit in the alpine tussock you must "rush slowly", they say, and if you don't walk then you'll have to ride a mountainbike, a horse or a quad bike.

This magic spot is special for another reason: because it is on a strip of private land that reaches high into the Tongariro National Park, the steam from the Ketetahi hot springs rises lazily on almost the same contour line.

The Turangi couple found it to lease when looking for somewhere to set up the outdoors business, and lifestyle, of their dreams.

They discovered the place by chance at the end of an exhaustive hunt for somewhere they could indulge their love of horses, hunting, fishing, people and the Tongariro area. In what might well be regarded as some sort of omen, they opened for business with quad bike rides and horse trekking on the day that Mt Ruapehu erupted in 1995.

It has been a long, slow haul since but the Christensens' motto is to "rush slowly". They are creating something for the future, employment opportunities for their people, and when you can see the bigger picture from a special spot on the slopes of Mt Tongariro, you don't go off half-cocked.

"We are not chasing big bucks," they say. "This is the balance. It is no good being stuck in city traffic when you can adjust your income and increase your lifestyle."

If that sounds a tad laidback, it is, but more by way of being relaxed and content, not sloppy or careless.

The Christensens get corporate clients on team-building exercises - except the couple call it building fun.

"We get people to stop thinking about mahi for a couple of hours and start thinking about who they are working with," says Toney.

They have had one company back 13 times and Toney's style is so effective that he has had several corporate job offers. No chance. This place is too special to think about leaving; it is in their family's blood, there are whanau buried here.

I ride a quad bike up the trails - a legacy of former logging days - to a small whare perched in the bush with a wonderful view of Lake Rotoaira. It's a great place for lunch. Some folks high up the professional ladder have begged to stay the night; the Christensens cook up a venison barbecue and leave them to relax and dream. Ka pai.

"It's the first time in years these people haven't thought about business or their companies," says Toney.

Shelly joins us on horseback. Her passion is riding and taking people around the stillness and majesty of the surroundings. She is tangata whenua.

"We had a German girl who stayed in the whare for two nights. When we picked her up she was crying.

"This place is like that. It's humbling. It's the mountain behind us. There is no room for ego. You can't compete with that mountain."

There is a certain incongruity here because some may consider that 4WD quad motorbikes and deer hunting don't quite mix with an outdoors paradise. But the Christensen brand of homespun philosophy, peppered with a beguiling use of Maori words, is as pragmatic as it is humble.

"If we concentrated on our similarities rather than our differences, we'd all be better off," observes Toney of race relations.

But he does have to earn an income and quad bikes that are guided so that they just "rush slowly" have a reasonably comfortable impact on the senses.

There is no "hooning" track at the Christensens' operation and riders who do not observe the speed and no-passing rules risk walking home. These bikes are to take you to magic places. Riding them up hill and down dale, through narrow, bush-fringed lanes and over creeks is definitely fun, but it is the surroundings that are all important.

"You have to have balance," says Toney. "And we are not going to compromise safety."

Which is not to say that riding around these 800ha is not exciting. It is exhilarating.

"The object of a visit here is to get to the top and back to the bottom safely. A full day on these bikes gets quite tiring, even for fit people."

The Christensens have access to 300km of trails, including one 140km ride through the Tongariro Forest to Owhango and back.

They also combine with Turangi rafting company, Rock'n'River, on a package they call Nga taonga o Tongariro - the treasures of Tongariro.

"The people are the treasures," says Toney.

Up on the couple's special spot in the alpine tussock he tells me of an American client who remarked recently that "these tussocks sell for $10 each in New York".

"You see," said a friend waving at the landscape, "you are a millionaire."

* Kiwi Outback Tours run three-hour, half-day and day quad-bike tours. Overnight trips, hunting and horse trekking are also available.

* Kiwi Outback Tours, Turangi, ph (07) 386 6607, 027 4517 222.

* Rock'n'River Rafting, Tokaanu, ph (07) 386 0352, email rock.n.river@xtra.co.nz

Rock 'n' River Rafting

Ruapehu NZ

* colinmoore@xtra.co.nz