Mr Denton’s tramping journal

Mr Denton’s tramping journal

Top image: Karatea Pa wharepuni, Denton's party on their Whanganui River expedition, Easter 1923. From page 48 of William Henry Denton's journal.

In the 1920s the urban middle classes of New Zealand discovered tramping. Clubs were formed. New tracks cut and huts built. On weekends and holidays more and more city dwellers put on their new boots, loaded their rucksacks and headed out into the wilderness. Many others thought it very odd behaviour indeed.

Recently the Alexander Turnbull Library received an interesting donation of papers from the Denton family of Wellington and Horowhenua. Amongst the papers is the journal of Wellington businessman and bachelor William Henry Denton (1872-1954), documenting his tramping adventures. He is a lively writer and his entries are profusely illustrated with photographs.

Denton (second from right) and his tramping companions tucked up in their tent on the Tararua ranges, September 1923. From page 58.

Most of the journal entries are from the 1920s, but Denton had been an outdoor enthusiast well before then. The earliest entry in the journal is of a climbing expedition to Mt Egmont in 1910, and he was a keen cyclist In his younger days he had cycled through Europe.

The journal includes his account of a 1921 solo cycling trip from Nelson through to Golden Bay. While pushing his bike towards the top of Takaka hill he met a road gang and "stopped for a yarn":

one bearded six-footer with a kink in his back – an uncouth back-blocker- was curious "What's your line?" said he... I replied that I was out holidaying and out for a rest. He looked me over. "My hat! Boys! He says he’s come up this bloomin’ hill for a rest; what do you think of that!" I left him combing his scraggy beard with his fingers, and lost in wonder...

The following year Denton took his bike down the west coast to the southern glaciers, and was very pleased when, by chance, he met up with a party of women walkers - "fine trampers and true sports". He spent the next few days with them, exploring the glacier and the surrounding trails, usually in pouring rain, all the while feeling very superior to the parties of over-dressed tourists lounging inside the hotel.

Other expeditions included a climbing and tramping expedition to the Mt Cook Hermitage, with 57 other Wellingtonians, a Milford Track walk with another mainly-women party, and a canoe expedition on the Whanganui river.

There are descriptions of day walks around the Wellington hills, and of bolder excursions into the Tararua ranges. One entry, headed "The introduction of skiing to the Tararuas" describes how he and some friends set out to the peaks of the Tararuas to find some skiing slopes, with only partial success.

Climbing Mt Egmont, and the party at the top, January 1910. From page 5.

Denton, though, was more excited by the view. Anyone who has been on the Tararua tops on a clear day can share his enjoyment as he gazed down on tiny Wellington harbour and beyond:

with the sunlight on Somes Island: middle distance: the strait and the coastline of the South Island – the water a deep blue: on the horizon: What an horizon! – the range in snow right from the Kaikouras to the back of Nelson. – and the colours! Exquisite! Superb! ... I’ll not forget that view and I’ll not see anything to beat it!

For the historian, Denton’s journal is a fascinating record of early tramping, changing attitudes to nature, and leisure. The modern tramper will find it just as intriguing, as an account of what some of the great New Zealand walks were like over eighty years ago.

David Colquhoun, Curator of Manuscripts

Read Denton's tramping journal on Find

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