Kathy 0:00

I still remember a little sound behind me and I turned around to see her just falling, I dunno how far down it was, but she landed, fell down through the bush some more and then was absolutely still. And we all rushed down and, she was unconscious.

Peter 0:14

So

Jonty 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.

Speaker 2 0:42

my guest today is Kathy Oler, freelance outdoor writer and longtime contributor to Wilderness Magazine and FMCs Backcountry. She has written widely on outdoor recreation, natural history and conservation, and also the number of books. I'm delighted to welcome her to the podcast.

Jonty 0:56

So where did you grow up and what are your earliest memories of being in the outdoors?

Kathy 1:00

I grew up on a farm on the Waikato, a Square flat dairy farm, which was pretty boring when I really wanted mountains. But did lots of outdoor stuff, feeding the calves, driving tractors. I was just a tomboy in the outdoors. And then curiously, I took up an indoor sport table, tennis quite competitively. Moved to Auckland so I could pursue that. Got a job in the bank and looked out the window one day and saw a posty riding past looking fit and tanned and thought, what am I doing indoors? So, Enrolled in a outbound course and that changed things. Before I went to outbound, after I'd enrolled, I thought, I know nothing about this business tramping bush mountains. And I knew nobody who did that sort of thing. So a friend of a friend had a husband who did a bit of hunting and one thing led to another husband decided he would take me for an introductory trip into Aru Hut in the kimono arranges. So that was my first trip, and it was raining. We stayed at Amru Hut overnight. He had his rifle. He talked all night. And then he decided in the morning that the little kapo stream might be up a bit that we had to walk back up to get out and it might be a bit dangerous. And he thought it might be better if we just crossed the Moha River that was down beside the hut and get out via Pono station. And I knew nothing about this business. We crossed the Mohaka River and to this day, I dunno why he thought it would be safer to cross that than go back up the Kypo Stream. We climbed across a tree branch that was lying across the river. The river was screaming underneath us. If we'd slipped, we'd still be there or down river somewhere. Anyway, we got out. I thought it was extremely adventurous at the time. Then a farm hand found us on PO station and went right off because of course it was private land and we weren't meant to be there, nevermind with a rifle. And he threw us into a vehicle and got us off the station. And that was my first tramping truck.

Jonty 2:53

So after that you were keen for more?

Kathy 2:55

Well after that I went off to Outward Bound it was in the seventies. I think it was one of the earliest courses where girls were actually allowed to go to outbound. And there were a bunch of us, 12 of us. We got lost in the bush. We got terrified in the cutter sailing in a storm. And we loved it. One of the girls ended up in the Burnham Hospital with a sore back after falling off the ropes course. Another girl fell off a bluff on our last ramping trip and ended up in Glenham Hospital. But we all survived. And it changed my life. It gave me a huge lesson when the girl fell off the bluff on our last tramping trip we're on our last day and we could see our way out. We had to walk along a ridge, down a spur to a river and then across a farm to the road. And we're all pretty excited 'cause we thought we've done it, we haven't got lost anymore, we're gonna get out. But we dropped down a bit soon. We went into a bit of steep country and we scrambled around a bluff and that's where Jill, one of the girls fell down. I still remember a little sound behind me and I turned around to see her just falling, I dunno how far down it was, but she landed, fell down through the bush some more and then was absolutely still. And we all rushed down and, she was unconscious. She came around a wee bit later. She had huge gashes and cuts and she was quite a mess. So four of us rushed off, down, straight away to get help. She stayed up there overnight with the rest of the team, including one nurse, which was quite fortunate. We got out to a farmhouse just on dark, rang the school. The instructor said we'll be there at first light in the morning, and we had an anxious night at the farmhouse. Climbed back up with the instructors in the morning, found Jill. She was sitting up, but not very well, so they decided they probably should have helicoptered her out. They decided no we'll walk her out. And so all the girls went off except three of us stayed with Bruce, the instructor, and we walked Jill out. And what had taken us a couple of hours to run down the night before took us to about seven o'clock that night to get down just to the river and the farm track where there was an ambulance waiting. And we got Jill off to hospital. And I guess the lesson in that was that I thought I was really tired the night before when Jill fell. And then I was able to run down, walk back up, and walk back out and do it. So that was the lesson that, you can always do more even though you think you're really tired, the other great thing that it did for me was that, I found this new community, back in Auckland of Outward bound old boys and old girls. They set up an adventure school in the Hulu Arranges at the time. And we used to go out there the weekends. Take intermediate school kids for camps, we'd load them all into the back of a big old truck, which you wouldn't be allowed to do these days. And we took them out there and we did little mini outward bound things. We had a ropes course. We had a terribly exciting and scary, flying fox that you jumped off a tree trunk holding onto a couple of loops of rope and flew out across the river and dropped off in the river and swam to shore. nobody died. We had a wonderful time From there I met people and ended up working at a place then called Boystown, but now called Youth Town in Auckland, which was a big center for kids. And I was put in charge of their outdoor program as in taking kids away for camps, all different age groups, camps, and tramps. With absolutely no qualifications to do so. But that was one of the best jobs I ever had

Jonty 6:18

and did Jill make a full recovery?

Kathy 6:21

She did. She actually ended up running marathons. Quite remarkable.

Jonty 6:25

And then, have you kept close to outdoor education and how it might be now, I'm assuming it's probably a bit more health and safety and qualifications involved?

Kathy 6:32

Yes. I'm a little bit far removed from it now to know for sure, but I know that when I was doing it, there were no qualifications. I would've 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, Boystown kids, which I can talk about. So what happened was in the school holidays I'd organize a program of trips for different age groups and for the teenagers, I decided I'd take them off to the Togo crossing, which in those days wasn't a famous walk. Nobody really knew about it except the local range of staff or tramping clubs. I'd been there myself, I'd stayed at MGA Poppo hut with this bunch of outward bounded old boys and girls. We'd done a day walk, from Monga de Poppo up the valley climbed hoe, came down. To Ke hub, which was there at that stage. Walked across a bit more to look down at the ke hot Springs. And then we went all the way back over the top of ero back to my, because those days you young and fit could do those things. And with that knowledge I thought this will be a magnificent place to take a group of kids for a school holiday trip. We got them on a poppo hut and the weather was pretty shocking thought we're not going over the top. So we drove around to Kit Hut, and I thought, we'll just go up to that hut for the night and see what happens after that. We were much slower getting up to than I thought we would be. It was snowing a bit. We got to the point that I thought. We shouldn't be out here, but I knew we must be quite close to the hut at that point. I knew there was a pole route that led all the way there, and it wouldn't be as far to get to the hut as it would be to turn around and go back down. So for better or worse, we carried on. And then I obviously missed a little tiny, sign that was down at ground level across a stream to cross to where the hut was. And we ended up floundering around in amongst the hot pool and it to the point it was too dark to carry on. So we stayed out the night with a couple of ground sheets for shelter, hiding behind a couple of big rocks. Got kids to double up in sleeping bags, called out to them all through the night. They all answered. And then in the morning the snow stopped. We could see the lights of topo. All the kids were still there. And everything was frozen. Their sleeping bags were frozen before I could stop them. They were dumping them into this, the hot spring to thaw them out, which of course, made them rather wet and heavy. Anyway, we got off the mountain. We came back down, straight away, had some hot soup in the car park, went to the hot pools. The chap there looked at us and said, good grief. E lot looked like you've been sleeping out on the mountain in a snowstorm all night. So kids immediately told him that's exactly what we've been doing, and he led us into the hot pools for free. We were very lucky. Many years later wearing my writer's hat. I was lucky enough to have a long chat with AKA who's the leader of na, the people who, are the UA for RO manga. And I told him that story and he stood up and he came over to me. He was, he had tears glistening down his cheek. He gave me a big hug and he said, that's the manga, Kathy, the manga, choose us. And that night the manga chose you. But it was a lesson. I had no qualifications little experience, and we got to that very dangerous situation. So hopefully that won't happen these days with outdoor education. I did another shorter course at outbound probably a couple of years ago now, when you're writing about things, one of the good things about it is you can look for adventures you might like to have and find, it's story topic and it might be worthy to make a story about it. And I'd heard about. A chap who I think he was in his late seventies, he used to go regularly to an Outward Bound course just to give himself an adventure and keep himself young. And I thought that would make a great story interviewing him. But then without checking my thinking, of course I thought a bit further and thought actually it'd be much more exciting if I did another course and wrote about it myself. so off I went a couple of years ago and did one of the shorter courses for what I thought were older people. And it turns out the older age group for outbound courses is anybody over 27. So we had a couple of 27 year olds and a few 40 year olds and me who went way beyond that. and there was a huge focus this time on the mental side of things. We did a lot of reflection about the experiences we had. maybe because I was older, maybe 'cause I'd had enough experience just. I wondered if it was a little bit much, whereas in the old days the experience itself was your teacher, you worked it out yourself. but it's still a very worthy thing what they're doing at Outbound. And it was fun to write the story.

Jonty 11:05

Interesting experience all around. Now just thinking back you've done a lot of tramps over the years. Are there any ones that particularly stand out as memorable,

Kathy 11:12

The Siberia Gillespie Young Trip. Gillespie Pass. One day many years ago. My then ranger husband was very keen to show me this area that he had been working in for a while. We didn't have much time. So we ended up flying in on a fixed wing plane to the air strip at Siberia and we walked up the valley, climbed Gillespie Pass, dropped down into the yang and went back out and got back to my Aurora all in one day. And that's, oh, that's more than 30 kilometers. I think I, I wouldn't be doing that today. Probably the Neil Winchcombe Ridge that I did with Sean. Was memorable. It was challenging for me. I wasn't quite fit enough. He actually carried my pack for a little way, which is embarrassing and really wonderful at the time. It was new territory. He'd never done some of it, so he was excited. Great company, great weather. So that was memorable. To be honest, some of the great walks they're beautiful places to be a little bit over the big crowded huts, but the, he, he of walked three times I've done it in winter, still calm, cool days. I've done it in. December when the Ratta had been flowering and the fuel were in the stream by go downs hut. and then after I'd had a family, my daughter was really sick and living with me and there was lots of drama going on for two or three months. And when all that finished and was resolved and everybody's healthy and well now, I went off and walked the hefe by myself and just found that really therapeutic. Just to wander amongst that, those beautiful downs, the beautiful big forest, the coastline. Abel Tasman inland, I a delightful walk there. Sunset saddle with Pete Laurenson. We walked up the TRAs up Hopeless Creek, went over sunset saddle down to Angela's hut and. The area of towns just above Lake Angeles was just, it's just been one of the nicest days I think I've had in the New Zealand mountains. That's enough. I could carry on forever.

Jonty 13:07

So many good memories. Have you had any particularly memorable wildlife encounters?

Kathy 13:11

lots of little ones. They're all special when you just come across in a river or a rock Ran I did a bit of, walking in Canada and United States Rockies a few years ago and there were beers and there were moose everywhere. It was terrifying. I just, I mean it's fantastic to see them, but you hear some pretty grizzly stories it's just good to get back home to Safe New Zealand.

Jonty 13:34

Yeah, it's definitely a different experience. Hiking overseas. I remember doing some in Australia and you're just, you're in the zone. And then an IMU just ran out into the middle of the track and looked at me and I looked at him and it was like something cartoon and we both screamed and ran off in opposite directions 'cause I just wasn't expecting a large path.

Kathy 13:51

We heard these stories about beer. We were on a trip in Glacier National Park going up to a place called Gunsight Pass. And the warden and the lodge, we were staying said, now those guys going to gun site pass today. There's a family of beers around just make a noise so they don't get surprised. Don't get between a mother and a cub. Anyway, we were walking along and my tramping mate was an English guy who felt like he knew a lot about wildlife and he said no, we'll be fine. There'll be no beers here. And he was getting very annoyed with me 'cause I was talking, he said, you'll scare away all the wildlife and see, oh, that's the idea. And he said, there's no beers here. And then I just looked down and there was a beer about 50 meters away from us looking at us. So Andy, stop. So he stopped and he took photos of it It carried on the other way. And I was relieved. I thought, great. We've seen a beer, i'm happy now. And then Andy said, oh, there's another one. Oh, it's right on the track ahead of us. So we got a bit closer and decided to go off the track and go down and around it. And it was going the same way as us and just, I think it was a young bear that stopped and looked at us and carried on eating and we walked past it and it ignored us and my heart was beating furiously and it's just recovering from that. We're in very thick forest and probably 30 meters ahead of us. There was a moose. I've never seen any animals so large that's big hat rack. Could probably pick up a car and tip it over. And then a cow moose came up beside it and we stood there for about 40 minutes just waiting and talking while the moose grumbled and poured the ground and looked at us and finally wheeled away. And they both ran away and we carried on walking. Yep, new Zealand's good. After that, they were gonna stayed at lots of Hudson

Jonty 15:28

campsites in any particular favorites.

Kathy 15:30

I started making a list, which kind of goes off the page. I think ones where you've got some open areas outside, you can see out, you see a bit of the landscape. So what have I got? I've got sunrise Hut. A favorite just by the Bush edge and the Rouhani ranges. The Rouhani tops, lovely camping spots. Ghost Lake is probably one of many people's favorite on the Old Ghost Road. I'd say any hut on the Old Ghost Road is great. A hundred acre plateau. Went there with Sean. We stayed in poor Pete's hut, and had a wonderful day trip walking across the a hundred acre plateau. I wanted to rename the hut 'cause it's apparently named after Pete, one of the builders. Who was going to get married when they went out from the trip to build the hut. So they called it Poor Pete's hut 'cause he was getting married. Oh, pot hu on the ableman inland track. It's a little FMO design with windows and you just get to look out, you can see down to Wui Inlet. you can see across the roof of the park. You see the sunset, you see the sunrise. The old, native timber built farmhouse at the northern end of Abel Tasman. It's just gorgeous and Chancellor Hut has to be there too. some friends and I did guided walk, on the above Chancellor and coming back there sitting with a late sun with Kia faffing around warm stones under our feet. And the history of that hut. We stayed in the women's quarters. there's a room just for women to stay there.

Jonty 16:54

So you are married to a Ranger and you lived in a pretty remote spot by the Wary River. what was life like?

Kathy 17:01

Yeah, that was interesting. I went from living in Auckland to, at the time there were about three families living there and uh, a school teacher and his wife and a farmer and his wife. There was no normal daily life. John, being John got me fully involved in ranger life it was a little bit curious because he was appointed to the job, but only on the basis that he was married because there were all these jobs that the department wanted the Ranger's wife to do. There's nobody else in Pap to do them. I dunno if that would work these days, but for me, it was a big adventure being in a place like that. we always had visitors. even though it was in the Wops, our own friends would come and visit us and family. We had work visitors, people coming up from Wellington. We, prince Ed Edward come for lunch one day because he was teaching at Collegiate and wanted to go up and see the river. we drove a jet boat up and down the place. Learned about the history. there were local iwi there there was a whole cultural. New ground for me. the local farmers really down to earth. so I was busy. I was doing lots of writing. That's when I perhaps started realizing writing is a very interesting thing to do. Writing brochures about various aspects of the river and the reserves. We wrote a little guidebook. John and I worked on it together. It's terribly outdated now. We didn't have a lot of information or content for ing with iwi in those days, and we've learned a lot more since. We were painting huts going to school galas, just, it was a real community thing. I used to look after a little museum called the Colonial House, which had been one of the riverboat skipper's homes. And was derelict at the time. And that was done up just before we arrived as a little museum and also a visitor center. So I'd sit down there mainly during the summer days and chat to visitors, driving through. A lot of canoes came through and we went exploring. There was one particular memorable trip where John had been flying over in a helicopter, sussing out something one day, and he came home and said, there's a little stream called the HA stream. It looks like it'd be really fun to draft it or canoe it or go down it, it goes into the Taka River, which goes into the Nui River. And it was way up in all this huge tract of unmodified lowland forest. So four of us went along. We drove up through to one day. We waited for some rain, so the river was up a bit 'cause he said that there wasn't much water in it normally. And we spent two nights, three days peddling down. We stopped when we could hear rapids ahead of us and had a look and decided if we felt confident of going through them. And then at one point we could hear a rapid ahead and we came around a corner and it was still ahead and we came around another corner and it was getting louder and louder. And then we came around another corner and the river just disappeared and it was a massive steam ahead of us. We pulled over to the side and found this huge waterfall, which probably we wouldn't have survived if we'd gone over it. And we spent about a couple of hours, carrying a raft in a ridiculous big Canadian canoe around the waterfall, lowered them into the river at the bottom by rope and carried on. We talked to somebody later, we found another couple of chaps who had been down the stream and they didn't know anything about a waterfall. And it turns out that they did go down at low flow where there was no huge flow of water going over this big kind of ledge. So they just lowered their canoes down over the rock ledge and carried on. So lots of good fun, lots of hunting. John introduced me to hunting, deer and pigs, which pretty good skills to have. Possums. We did some possum lines. Learned about that. So it was lots of things going on there. It was pretty special. Do you still hunt? I've still got a rifle. I haven't for a while. The last time I tried to hunt, I went back up to where my friend Miles still lives He came to work for John when we were there, back in the seventies. And he's a very keen hunter and he was going to take me out. But, the day I went up, he said, there's a lot of heavy rain coming. Kath, I think you might get stuck here if you stay at night. 'cause the road was in a very bad state. He said, I got a few deer this morning. you can have one if you like. So he skinned the deer, wrapped it up in a sheet, put it in my car, and I drove home with a deer. So that was my last effort of hunting. But yeah, Wild Venison is a very nice meat if you eat meat.

Jonty 21:14

Now you've written extensively for Wilderness Magazine and you've published several books. So at what point did you start to get interested in writing, particularly outdoors writing?

Kathy 21:22

Yeah, it was, I guess I've always been keen on writing and school writing was fun, so I thought. Writing or journalism could be a career. And I ended up being in a remote ranger station instead. So writing the guidebook and brochures seemed to be good opportunities. And then, that just evolved. Writing in the outdoors seemed to go together to suit my interests when I had kids. It was an option just to be at home with them and to work around them. I could keep writing, freelance. A lot of people say to me now, they said, oh, you're just lucky. You've got a great job. You go dreaming and you get paid for writing about it. It doesn't quite work like that. It doesn't pay a lot. To be honest, I think, the magazines they need money from advertising to sustain them. That's not why I do it for the income. I'm fortunate. I'm able to do it. and it's actually just, it's a privilege writing about the outdoors. Often I'm just the messenger. I'm relating somebody else's story. I'm meeting people at the coalface that the experts in places. it could be somebody else who's had a huge experience, a dock manager and adventurer, people doing wonderful conservation work and my stories to relate their story really honestly and accurately. And hopefully people will learn from what we write and be interested.

Jonty 22:36

What are some of your favorite pieces you've written?

Kathy 22:39

Favorite to me, the people that you meet are really good. Social trappers, that's one that I did recently. it was about a woman, Janet and her friends who have for a long time, been trapping field in Rahini Forest Park. Janet Wilson, and I've been wanting to go up with her. Going firsthand is always really useful. It helps you give a better experience when you're writing about it. Finally we managed to get a weekend that she said they were going up in the Rahini ranges. And she said it's a bit rainy, but we think it'll be all right. And there's a bunch of older women that, like to come out. So I'll get them together and we'll do the trap line. So her older social women, they were, yeah, they were my age, not far off. They were very social and they were very fit and strong and carrying big packs on their backs, doing about 90 traps, I think on the way up to the hut. And then going off the next day, up a steeper hill up towards the tops, doing more traps. And Jen has been doing that for years and years. Plugging away, the Hollyford Trust is another place, and that was a good excuse for adventure and getting down there. Lindsey Wilson's been running the Hollyford Conservation Trust and they've got an enormous number of trap lines all around Martins Bay region. And so being able to promote these people and the good work they're doing that's always a good good reason behind getting into some of these stories. The Wni job going to the Back Country Trust restoration program of Kta Hut, which turned into a whole hut relocation of what had been called Comet Hut in the Cowork Arranges. It was at a road end and was very badly vandalized. And so the Backcountry Trust team, which in the end turned out to be all women, went in and pulled the hut apart, built some flat packs. In Hawke's Bay flew everything into a new site by the Al Aurora River and rebuilt it. They cut down a huge manca clearing so they could put the hut in a safe position above the river. They went in for a working bee, digging hut, piles by hand and cementing by hand with water carried up from the river and then spent a solid 10 day stint, plus a few more days. The hut was flown to the site by helicopter and then they put the cladding on the flooring, the bunks. They water tank everything related to the hut. They spent another couple of huge working bees cutting a track down to the hut. And so I just totalled in for three days and took it easy. Did a bit of work for them, learned a lot, and that was a great excuse for having an adventure and promoting the back country trusts

Jonty 25:12

You've been involved in, trapping and restoration activities. How has that changed your perspective on Bush?

Kathy 25:18

Oh. I think the perspective is always there that damaged by predator pests, isn't a happy thing to see. But, certainly there's been huge involvement In community trapping groups and volunteer trapping. in very recent times, it's people call it tramping with a purpose or social trapping as the rahini women did. I think it's come about there's a greater awareness as it's perhaps an older population that is looking for something to do. That's not saying there aren't young people out there doing it as well. It's good for the forest and the birds and it's good for us. we all know that dock is struggling. There's a lot to do. I'm not sure as it sustainable that there are so many volunteer trapping groups just around Wellington, nevermind around the rest of the country. We've got, organizations like Zip zero, invasive Predators, trying to look at large scale control. And prevent invasion. we also need 10 80, but for now it's just, a great excuse to get out. I've got some trap lines local at Ari Wilin Bush that I live next to, there's another one at Bearing Head where a whole different bunch of people go out there, and that's a lovely day out. There's the Taka Forest Park Trust that have got huge trap lines over the Taka Forest to help protect Kiwi that have been reintroduced there. It's just good to see all that involvement and engagement and investment. But we do need more. we need 10 80 to help support that.

Jonty 26:39

So you mentioned Terry Walton Bush, where you are a trustees, and how did you become involved?

Kathy 26:43

Oh, somebody twisted my arm, but I'm quite happy that she did that. I got involved because, I live close to her. I've been trapping in the bush for 10 years. There's about a hundred hectares here of, regenerated, native forest, including some absolutely original forest that was protected by one of the farmers who came here back in the 1860s. job Wilton. And alongside that, there's a five hectare, native botanic garden, which was established in 1926 by Leonard Cocaine. The botanist who was distressed at the time by all the land clearing and farm development going on around New Zealand and subsequent loss of native species. So his plan was to devise this open air native plant museum, as he called it, and to bring plants from all around New Zealand and, put them here and devise little mini ecosystems to replicate their habitats and protect them from extinction. And, that's now the only botanic garden in New Zealand that attends solely to natives. And we're celebrating the centenary of cocaine setting it up this year in 2026. So it's a pretty special place. and because we're just down valley from Zoia and because of all the predator control work that's going on, it's become a stronghold for Native birds as well. We probably have more. Kaka and other native birds around here than in many places around New Zealand. The kaka come down from Sia. They love our old growth trees with hollow trunks that they nest in. And what usually happens is I go away for a really cool tramping trip somewhere in the country and come back, turn up at home. And there's probably more birds flying around here than I've seen on my tramping trip. It's pretty special. Agreed. And what's left on your tramping bucket list? Just whatever opportunity comes up, whether I go back to the same places again or go somewhere new. It'll be, if somebody gets together a trip or if there's an opportunity to go somewhere. But I was gonna say about the stories, why I do it. And I think two of the stories you asked me before that I enjoyed doing. One, was about track building over the decades and, having contacts through DOC are really valuable. You get to know who have been doing what in some places. That story evolved from, going to the new Paparoa track as it was being built and meeting the construction guys. Working on that track. And from that we talked about what they were doing compared with the old days. the history of track building ended up with talking to Ken Bradley, who, has now retired down in Fum. But he could talk about going from shovels and pickaxes, maintaining the Milford track in the very old days, to introducing the first digger and building a track, which is what they did on the Kipler track. It's 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 Tongareero National Park who did a lot of track work there. And he talked about how he would fly awake at night, worrying about the pum on their tracks eroding at Tonga 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, who's, the guru Of dual purpose tracks that have come along the All Ghost Road and Papao track, who uses computer modeling and aerial imaging and fancy stuff like that to set the line, the grade of the track and water management has changed hugely from big ditches beside the tracks that fill up with stuff to having a thing they call swes, where contour of the track changes. So the water just naturally drains off and the hot wardens use leaf blowers to clear the track of all the little twigs and sticks so water doesn't build up and build channels in the track. So yeah, I just found all that was quite interesting, seeing how things have evolved.

Peter 30:34

So

Speaker 30:37

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.