Celia: 0:00

I've not got a great head for heights. So I said which way should I go here? And he said, yeah, now go to your left. And of course, Alistair is hopeless with left and right. So I took about three more steps and he said no, not that left.

Speaker: 0:22

Kiro and welcome to the Tramping Life, a podcast about hiking in outro New Zealand, or as we call it here, tramping. I'm jt, and in each episode I chat with people who share passion for exploring this incredible country. We'll hear about the tracks they love, the huts they return to, the lessons they've learned, and what keeps them heading back into the bush.

Jonty: 0:41

My guest today is Celia Wade Brown Green Party mp, former mayor of Wellington, founder of the Wire, apple Walking Festival, and a lifelong tramp including walking the TRO Trail. Celia brings a real passion for the outdoors and sustainable living, and I'm delighted to welcome her to the podcast.

Celia: 0:58

Kira, John t greetings to you and to your listeners, and it's a bit of a drizzly day here at the edge of the Tara Forest Park, but doesn't stop me getting out.

Jonty: 1:08

I was gonna say, it doesn't come across on the podcast, but um, she has shed her view and she looks onto Tara. So I'm very jealous of her being able to do that. So I like to start at the beginning. So I'm interested in what are some of your earliest memories of being outdoors?

Celia: 1:22

I grew up in England in the middle of London. Going for walks with my mom would be going to Little Venice before it was fashionable, when the canals were still pretty smelly. But still really interesting. Going to the great big parks. in London. We didn't have a garden at all, but we lived in a council flat, but the wonderful gardens, Kensington Gardens, St. James' Park and so on. So those are quite big spaces for a little one. And then my mum's family was from the Lake District, so summer holidays whenever we could get up there. My train with lots of changes we'd go up there and do some tramping up in the lake district.

Jonty: 2:02

as a former pom myself, I can relate to that experience. And then when did you start heading into the New Zealand Bush?

Celia: 2:08

I moved over here in the eighties and I still remember just taking a walk at the back of Eastbourne up into the East Harbour Regional Park and just standing there and smelling the bush and thinking. This smells totally different to the English forest and I don't know a single tree.'cause my mum was quite a keen amateur botanist, so I'd expect to know what the trees were, what the flowers were, that sort of stuff. And I just stood there and thought, I don't know any of these. So I started getting to know that. And just did. Gentle walks around, I lived on the South Coast, so walking out to Red Rocks, things like that were great. Enjoyed that. I was probably more into rafting was my big thing when I was working with some other people in it.

Jonty: 2:55

And then when was your first multi-day tram?

Celia: 2:58

I think it might have been actually after we had children. And we managed to escape for a long weekend, and we did the Nelson Lakes in the pouring rain. Yeah, but it didn't put me off. So it wasn't that long ago. We joined the Tara Tramping Club, in about 2001. But our first trip with them was down the Nui River in canoes. So we went up on the, um. Trips and it's only really after those sort of high adrenaline things that I got into tramping in New Zealand

Jonty: 3:32

And who did you tend to tramp with? Were your family or the club or friends?

Celia: 3:36

I have a lot of friends that like to walk and talk. Doing things like the southern walkway or the city to sea, those are great walks You can go quite spontaneously. You don't need to prepare too much. After we joined the Tramping Club, did a few walks with them, but it wasn't really until I finished being mayor that I went on many trips'cause people who are working full time can't do the Wednesday walks. And I knew I wanted to do, which would come to in a minute and I thought I better get tramping fit. So I used to go out every Wednesday for about three months, which was great. Alistair and I did the root burn when I was mayor. Managed to get down there just after the bookings and we were so lucky. It had just snowed, but it was calm and we were the only people in the huts. It was amazing.

Jonty: 4:29

I'm glad to hear that you did some prep for the ta it's amazing how many books have been published about the TAs. There's lots of different kind of stories about it and it is a pretty amazing experience, but I'm always surprised that certainly the people who've published books, they don't tend to be hardcore trampers. It tends to be people with less of a tramping background who decide to walk the lens of New Zealand.

Celia: 4:46

I decided I was stand down. I knew that the media would ask me and other people would ask me, what you going to do after that? And to be honest, I wasn't too sure. So I thought let's give them something to think about. I said to my husband, because a friend of ours had just done TE ROA the year before. I said to my husband, what do you think about doing roa? And he said, in the immortal words that would take a lot of planning. And I thought that's not a no, so we're going. So once I'd announced it to the media, I had to do it anyway. But yeah, we did, I did the Wednesday walks. I'm worked my way up from easy to easy, medium to medium and so on. And I did something I didn't really enjoy, but given the time I had to do it, I went to the gym and lifted some weights, some shoulder weights because it's no good just doing your tramping practice without a pack. We'd done things like the Southern crossing it wasn't as if we hadn't done any tramping, but we just hadn't done much and we did it in a funny order because I couldn't start till Christmas. I had, I was training as an English as a second language teacher and I was trying to get fitter than I was as mayor. You go to far too many openings and celebrations so I wasn't that fit to start with. So we started on Boxing Day 2016 and walked through quite a lot of 2017.

Jonty: 6:07

Are there any particular highlights or low lights that spring to mind?

Celia: 6:10

I think it was just so exciting to start it. We did the South Island first northbound or nobo in the jargon. And then we went and flew to Auckland and got a friend to drive us to Cape Ranga and walked, rang her to Auckland. And then the forecasts were rubbish at that point. So we put off doing Auckland to Wellington till springtime. So yeah, there were a few highlights. I actually found rental pretty tricky. But I was reasonably fit by then, so I managed it. That was quite a big achievement. There was an exciting bit going up breast hill, which is very, for me, very steep. And I didn't, I've not got a great head for heights. I'm a lot better since doing TRR though. and, Alistair went first. He's a little bit more, competent than me. It's scrambling up things and has no fear of heights. So I said which way should I go here? And he said, yeah, now go to your left. And of course, Alistair is hopeless with left and right. So I took about three more steps and he said no, not that left. I loved meditative bit of walking along 90 Mile Beach that was just, that was actually more pleasant than one thought it might be. Seeing just a little hint of a hill in the distance becoming clearer. We were in the fortunate situation of not having to do it the totally cheapest possible way. So we stayed at Hook Terry Lodge that had hot tub, which after a couple of days walking along 90 Mile Beach is awesome. But then you get some free fun things like. Ranges. There's lots of free hot pools. Natural hot pools. The trouble is they have added sand flies. It was a real mix. That's what I liked about Tara. Or you go to little Towns past and didn't know that. Southland had so many Mirai. I expected them in Northland, but I didn't expect them in Southland. And every town. Had decent milkshake and pizza, which is just what you want when you get it outta the bush.

Jonty: 8:13

And did you have any favorite huts along the way?

Celia: 8:16

I did like Nichols Hut in the Tara for the views. Just amazing. There were some pretty rubbish huts. Some of the very small ones. Studies heart. Shepherd's heart. Some of those were pretty, pretty basic, but look, you're just glad to be horizontal and have some shelter from the rain. And actually, after having done the first two thirds of Tera Aurora that's when we decided we could live in this little place in our tiny home in the Tara. tara Ranges where. We built this as a holiday place and it's about 20 square meters. And after staying in some very variable huts, we decided we could actually move here.

Jonty: 8:58

So how big is your place in comparison with a typical hut?

Speaker 3: 9:01

Medium.

Celia: 9:02

Yeah. Medium, 20 square meters. A lot of, it's we've got a lovely wood fire and we've got a mezzanine platform that you have to clamber up a ladder to. So it's a very well organized space.

Jonty: 9:15

And who did you meet on the trail? Did you meet some interesting people?

Celia: 9:18

Oh, yes, we did. One of the interesting people was a young Maori woman who hadn't done tramping before. And you're quite right, there's quite a few people that start off and haven't done much tramping before. And she was much more nervous of, hypes than I was. And I remember coming out, oh,

Speaker 3: 9:36

must have been just before.

Celia: 9:38

I think one of the big rivers when we were walking along this trail just above the river, and it was interesting because as soon as I had to help her and give her some confidence, I found that my own nervousness evaporated. So it was lovely to meet her. She ended up going on the board of the Te Auckland branch for a while, so it was great. Then there was a really fast French Canadian. He was very fast, but he often headed off in, the wrong direction. For about 10 days we'd start off at the same time and end up at the same time, and he would've gone. Very interesting route.

Jonty: 10:16

Were there any overcrowding issues along the way,

Celia: 10:18

we were fine in 2017. There's a couple of times the huts were full, but not unpleasant. We always carried a tent. Yeah, so we were fine. I understand there's some challenges now and that's, one of the reasons for bringing in the registration and the hut pass I was very pleased when te are put in the extra water tanks on the Richmond Rangers huts, because we were okay, but there were reports in the hut books of the water running low

Jonty: 10:45

You don't wanna run out of water in the ritual ranges.

Celia: 10:48

That was one of our mistakes. Coming through from Ahi. and we thought we'd be able to get over two or whatever the road is in one go. And we passed this waterfall and we didn't fill up our water bags it was getting dark. The sort of rural were calling and we had to just camp out and we were really tight for water. that was a never go past a waterfall again.

Jonty: 11:15

That's good advice. Now, you founded the Wire Wrapper Walking Festival.

Celia: 11:19

In 2017 we moved over to the RA in November and I got involved in a few things, including the Carter and Walking and Cycling advisory group, and they're talking all sorts of great things about biking, which I also like. I've also done some long distance bike packing. And I still bike to Parliament every day in Wellington, pretty much. And I said, oh, whatcha doing for walking? And I have to say they looked distinctly blank. So I said what about a walking festival? And they all look enthusiastic, but they continued to look at me. So we had our first walking festival in 20, 21. That's right. With about nine walks. And just in the carton district. And now we've expanded to have, I don't know, 30 or so across the RA upper, and they range from, looking at the outdoor carvings and spaces at the papa y Marai, which will be just under an hour probably. And not very strenuous, but very interesting, through to, I've got a two day tramp, and we've got wonderful sponsors, transit buses, so that helps you organize things. Hard to do otherwise. So they're going to drop us at the wahine road end, and we're gonna walk in, stay at Tora Flats hut, which are booked most of the bunks there, and then we walk out and get picked up at the Holdsworth road end. So it's a really good first overnight tramp if people haven't done any before. Anyone's welcome.

Jonty: 12:49

And I saw a photo you shared I think it was at Castle Point with yourself with some migrants and, refugees.

Celia: 12:54

We started reaching out because if you're not careful for walking, tends to be, a relatively narrow demographic and we wanted to reach out and encourage people. As you say, there are some countries where walking. Doesn't feel that safe. And we wanted to make sure that people felt that they could go for walks with their family. So we just did a lovely trip again with the transit bus out to Castle Point. I went with the Red Cross and Marton District Council on this, and we took a whole lot of people out to Castle Point and we walked from the car park up to the lighthouse and back. Again, a really short walk for anyone who's a serious tramp. It is a spectacularly beautiful one and it is somewhere that people who perhaps don't have their own car would never have got to otherwise. So it was really nice. I'm not sure that some of them didn't enjoy the picnic more, but we did both.

Jonty: 13:49

So should there be a Wellington walking festival?

Celia: 13:51

I'm sure there should. There's quite a lot of walks in the Wellington Heritage Festival. We did a walk for the suffrage, the hundred and 20th suffrage walk. That was with Living Streets and Living Streets. Altera is more of the urban walking advocacy. I founded that in 2002. So I see a gap. I jump in.

Jonty: 14:12

You keep busy. Although as an MP now, I suspect that's quite a busy job. There's a few things the government have done which have made things maybe in the outdoors a bit more challenging. So I'm interested in your views around some of the proposals about outdoor education and how that might play out.

Celia: 14:25

I think it's a great shame that this government is proposing to take outdoor education as a subject of the senior curriculum. I think that outdoor education engages people in a way that other subjects sometimes don't. And it's not only for academic students. the problem solving, the planning, the geography, the risk. Assessment, the first aid. All of those sorts of things are pretty basic life skills that we should all have. And, in a country that relies quite heavily on tourism, what's a pathway to being a guide whether it's a ski guide, a rafting guide, a hiking guide, Kayak education, look at the purchase and outdoor white water stuff. you really need to get people comfortable that's a space that they're safe in. I would've thought school time spent in outdoor education is very valuable. So that's one of the mistakes that the government's made, but it's made a few others as well.

Jonty: 15:25

Do you think that could be addressed at the select committee stage or you think they're pretty set on taking it out?

Celia: 15:30

I'm not sure what extent they're consulting on outdoor education. Certainly the Outdoors Education New Zealand organization and a number of others are very strong. I think they're presenting a Petition to Parliament on the 21st of October. I'm definitely going to try and make it there. Say a few words if I can. We'll do what we can to resist that. I've had a good chat with Lawrence Nan, our education spokesperson, who's very active and very well connected in education. But also, if you just think of the state of our outdoors doc is already underfunded. There's never enough money for conservation and tracks and so on, and this government's cut it by hundreds of millions of dollars. There's been a little bit of a bandaid from the international visitor levy, that has been helpful both for some of the infrastructure and some of the funding of back country, but. It's also when they increased the amount, they opened up for different uses of their IVL like marketing. Now, marketing should not be coming outta that budget.

Jonty: 16:34

So do you have a perspective on, so funding increase to dock, how much of it should be going on by diversity in conservation versus the tracks and the huts and more of the recreational side of things?

Celia: 16:45

I think Doc can make, the best use of the money if they do involve volunteers and the backcountry. Trust is one example, but also we've got the greater Wellington Backcountry network that do an amazing amount of work on the tracks in the, and the wrong or wrong and so on. They're supported by doc, so they will get, perhaps flown in with all of the tools and the equipment and then they donate their time. There's so many predator free groups now. I'm really hoping that the Predator free strategy refresh will come out strong. I really hope it includes feral cats cause that's such a threat to our biodiversity. The dot, the als on the coast, the rifle and the tit, pmu. All of these different birds are very vulnerable. I've got a bit of a passion for lizards myself which is a good thing'cause they live in our house. But I don't think there's enough work being done on monitoring. There's quite a lot of, I mean, they say there's more than 4,000 species in New Zealand at risk of extinction threatened or at risk of extinction. But there's awful lot that are data deficient. We just don't know. Looking for skins and geckos is a tricky business unless they're like our ones which choose to live in the cupboards and the. The sheds and so forth.

Jonty: 18:05

What could we do to make the tramping environment sustainable going forward? The impact of social media, particularly Instagram on particular huts, and there's a lot of pressure on certain parts of the network, and then there's also the backcountry. So how do we get that balance and what can we do To try and make sure that future generations can enjoy what we've enjoyed without having that overt tourism, challenge, which a lot of countries have had. And actually, in New Zealand on a number of our great walks, for example, are very difficult to book. Um, They're so popular.

Celia: 18:31

In a way, the Great Walks are well managed through that booking system, but we can't do that everywhere and we shouldn't do that everywhere. I think there is some real issues about. tourism New Zealand has only got funding for overseas marketing, and I think we are missing the opportunity to get our domestic tourists, out to the regions in different seasons. And to find the little gems that if you're on a two week. Blast through New Zealand, you just won't get to. But the domestic tourists are good for going tramping, going biking, whether it's kayaking or dare I say occasionally, jet boating. These are people that we could get to the areas that need the economic development and are not, overrun I think there is room for making some better connections to towns. at the moment you have to get a shuttle or drive yourself to the road ends, and perhaps it could have a better system for booking something that would drop people off and pick them up. Again, something in the Lake District, they've got a little mini bus that does, various circuits. and again, when we did the root burn, we were picked up. The other end. There's things like that would make quite a big difference.

Jonty: 19:42

What's your perspective on more of a user pays approach to the back country, whether it's through increased hub fees, particularly if they're on the booking system or people having to pay to enter.

Celia: 19:52

In general, I don't support it. I think there's perhaps a few hotspots where it may be appropriate. And I think the issue where overseas tourists pay and locals don't is a reasonable response given that we're paying our taxes. What I find frustrating is that Doc is being forced to go out and look for philanthropic funding, which is getting scarer anyway, and they're in competition with walking festivals, with trapping groups, with all of the other groups that are doing good environmental things that need funding. And I do wish Judith Collins had to go out and ask for donations for her Seahawk helicopters rather than dock having to go out with a begging bowl.

Jonty: 20:34

On the topic of parliament, have you come across many other mps who are T Trumpers? Do you think there's an affinity there in the house?

Celia: 20:41

Yes. I think there are some outdoor people. Some of them tend to be the hunting and fishing group, but that still gets them out into the back country. There's some mountaineers and yeah, there's definitely some keen trampers. Chloe was up the tarot row ranges not too long ago. And yeah there's some very keen outdoors people. I was very fortunate to be able to go earlier this year on a four day heco. I went with Graham Atkins, who's a marvelous conservationist he led us up into the KU range behind Ang to see what the effect had been of 10 80 because the forest was dying. It was dying from the top because of the possum brows, and it was dying from the bottom because of huge numbers of dear. And he was so excited to see the new shoots coming away and rota flowering I was privileged to go to a forest bird hui on the west coast and we went up to the Denniston Plateau and I saw just how precious that is. And it was one of those wonderful slow walks with botanists. You can actually stop and look and take lots of pictures and I met a most beautiful plant. One of the carnivorous plants, a sun, deer. Yeah. Beautiful little pink number that again, very few places in New Zealand would have things like that. So I think we need to protect, it's not just the underfunding of dock missing out outdoor education, but the whole fast track mining and conservation land is the opposite of what, biodiversity needs, but it's also the opposite of what. Overseas tourists wanna see.

Jonty: 22:16

Agreed. There's definitely a reality check between the images you see overseas and then when people arrive and if they see those impacts on the landscape. And particularly it's always at the places that tend to have the mining, tend to have the tourists. The west coast, it's half conservationists, it's half miners. There's quite a strong tension there.

Celia: 22:30

Yeah. and of course we have to have a transition for good jobs, so that people are not, abandoned. But, we are seeing in the old industrial jobs awful things because of the prices of electricity with the mills closing and, People just hold towns almost becoming centers of unemployment and we can't have that. So I'm pleased that the Greens have got a good industrial, strategy with transition for jobs from the more extractive to the more, caring and productive.

Jonty: 23:02

And it's great that we've actually got some examples of that. Blackball was a classic dying west coast town and is pretty booming and all off the back of that tourism, which you say probably is largely domestic and a bit of international.

Celia: 23:13

Revitalizing, jobs in that area is really important, but we also have to make sure that those tourism jobs are not just the lowest paid we need to make sure that there's added value. And that they're year round. it was a pleasure to see quite a few people on the Old Ghost Road in the middle of winter. It was a great tramp to do among the icicles, in September. And yeah, there's a lot of places that we need to focus with the locals on creating, enjoyable places to go and places for people to spend their money.

Jonty: 23:48

So do you have probably a bit busy at the moment, but do you have a bucket list of trips that you want to do in the future?

Celia: 23:54

think it's growing faster than I'm able to do them. And I like the long trips. I did the sounds to sounds, in 2023, and that took me to some really interesting places. But it, I also found it quite hard going over the O Marma saddle. So I've then bought an. EBI since. So, I quite like to do some longer trips on the e-bike. I'm very keen on both sea kayaking and pack rafting. So I've got quite a few on my list of things to do. It, what it has done is being in this busy job is it's focused me on things that are close at hand. So people probably don't realize how beautiful the Hut gorges now just near Upper Hut. And, our Kai Rangi goes through. Pristine forest and gorges where you don't see anybody. It's good. Look at what's local before you, go too far.

Jonty: 24:48

Excellent. And then just to finish up with do you have a specific trip planned?

Celia: 24:51

I've got a trip planned for labor Weekend, it's a mixture of kayaking and walking. I'm taking the. Kayak on the ferry, and I'm kayaking up to Blueman Island, which is a pest free reserve in the Marlborough sounds. And looking forward to walking around the island and listening for birds and hoping that the wind will be in my favor both ways. That

Speaker: 25:16

Thank you so much for listening to the Tramping life. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please follow the podcast in whatever app you use. Tell a friend about it and consider leaving a rating or a review. It really helps more people discover the show. you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at the tramping life, one word@gmail.com.