Hands up if you’ve ever used public transport to go tramping in New Zealand. I did take the train to National Park once, but that was on a school trip and I would not have considered it an option otherwise. This is New Zealand: most of us go by car.

I got to thinking about this for two reasons this month. First, in the story ‘Trains, buses and automobiles’ (p54) we learn that, as recently as the 1970s, it was common practice to use public transport – trains, in particular – to access the outdoors. It was cheap, reliable and got you where you wanted to go.

It’s still like that in the UK, where public transport is more deeply embedded into everyday life. I’ve hopped on trains and buses from London to go tramping in Wales, and buses from Windermere to the walking track on the A951 that leads to Helvellyn, and to Scotland for my first bothy experience.

In contrast, New Zealand’s public transport systems connect us to work or school but rarely to distant family or neighbouring regions. 

And that leads me to the second reason I’ve been thinking about public transport. This month’s ‘Off the beaten track’ story (p22) is about crossing Ball Pass in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park. This classic route, which brings trampers close to our highest mountain, is becoming ever more tenuous. Ice that once held the rock together is vanishing, and more frequent extreme rain events have severely eroded the route and created gullies, washouts and unstable terrain. It is currently inaccessible up the Hooker Valley, where a bridge has been closed for safety reasons. 

There’s a cruel juxtaposition here between our decades-long obsession with the convenience of cars and a changing climate that is damaging our treasured landscapes. So hats off to those who catch Dunedin’s No.3 bus to the Pineapple Track, or the train from Wellington to Paekākāriki to walk the Escarpment Track. Using public transport won’t solve climate change, but it’s one way to reduce our contribution to it.