Popular Culture
The Cold Kiwi Motorcycle rally, NZ's largest rally., has been held on the Plateau since 1972. Initially at 6 Crossroads on army land near the highest point on the Desert Road, it has now moved to a new site 6 km west of Waiouru on the Ohakune Road. The event is run by Ruapehu Motorcycle club in early Sept each year. The average temperature is -8C at night. Bikers sleep in their own tents but the club provides competitions, souvenirs, hot food and drinks, a bonfire, live bands and WC's. Tourism is an economic mainstay of the region with a wide range of largely outdoor attractions from trout fishing, flyfishing on Tongariro River or harling on Lake Taupo, tramping, Mountain biking, deer or pig hunting, horse riding to snowskiing/boarding on Mt Ruapehu.
The one day Tongariro Alpine Crossing from the Mangatepopo Valley across Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro is considered one of the greatest one-day walks in the world. The 19.2 km track is well marked and popular but trampers should be quite fit and well equipped as the route is exposed, especially during the winter months (April to September). There are two well equipped huts on the route. Detailed guidance is available from the Mt Ruapehu Visitors Centre. The Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre of New Zealand is located on the site of an old construction camp. Started by mountaineer Graham Dingle in the 1970s, this centre offers valuable outdoor training experience and skills to secondary school groups and others. Train and engineering enthusiasts will enjoy the Raurimu Spiral - a railway masterpiece where the main trunk rail line spirals upwards 132m via a tunnel and 180 degree hair pin bends so the passengers near the head of the train can see the rear carriages heading in the opposite direction. This was the last stage to be built in the main trunk railway line completed in 1900. A YMCA, which used to be the local primary school, is located nearby for accommodation.
Read more about this topic: North Island Volcanic Plateau
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Popular culture entered my life as Shirley Temple, who was exactly my age and wrote a letter in the newspapers telling how her mother fixed spinach for her, with lots of butter.... I was impressed by Shirley Temple as a little girl my age who had power: she could write a piece for the newspapers and have it printed in her own handwriting.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Without metaphor the handling of general concepts such as culture and civilization becomes impossible, and that of disease and disorder is the obvious one for the case in point. Is not crisis itself a concept we owe to Hippocrates? In the social and cultural domain no metaphor is more apt than the pathological one.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)