Getting on with it: Mountain tracks a labour of love

Colin Hallett, centre, with the novice trampers he took up Mt Te Aroha to Wairere Falls.

This is the third of six finalists in the Bell Tea/Herald on Sunday Getting On With It search for special, ordinary people.

Nominations for people who have rolled up their sleeves and just got on with it have rolled in. Today and over the next three weeks we profile the finalists who win a year's supply of Bell Tea. The overall winner receives an iPad as well.

Colin Hallett

Inch-by-inch, Colin Hallett has cleared and restored the disused tracks on picturesque Te Aroha Mountain. He has not done it for money or praise but for love of the mountain. In the process he has created tramping trails that are now an acknowledged community asset.

In his 80s, Hallett has always been a keen tramper. For the past 10 years he has been working away quietly to reopen disused tracks, some of which are more than a century old. He has also led teams of trampers in track restoration projects, including the 2012 re-opening of a track from 1900 that leads from Te Aroha township to the picturesque Tutumangao Waterfall.

He recently completed the final track in the recovery project - the Pipeline Track. "This leads along the pipeline that went from the waterfall to the old reservoir," he says. "It's the final link in a circuit of tracks on the mountain and it connects all the tracks together."

Hallett's hard work and dedication inspired his friend Noel Harvey-Webb to nominate him for the Getting on With It award. "For years he has planned, organised, fund raised, constructed and carried material hundreds of feet up-mountain, taking job satisfaction for his reward," says Harvey-Webb.

He says the tracks Hallett has re-opened extend about 275m up the mountain and describes his stamina and strength during these projects as almost Herculean.

"In constructing steps, he carried some of the timber to the top of the mountain in a backpack. He is not a big man but he carried long lengths timber up the hill - it is hard to work out how he did it."

Hallett is a modest man, who has never sought acknowledgement for his years of
hard work. "I am a tramper and I love the bush. The whole thing was a labour of love for me."

But the track restoration project isn't all he's known for in the area. Michele Laurie, who manages at Te Aroha i-SITE centre, said he was also instrumental in setting up Te Aroha Search and Rescue in the 1960s in response to the plane crash in the Kaimai Ranges where 23 people lost their lives. "He is still called on to supply detailed knowledge of the tracks in the Kaimais when a search is required."

Hallett's work on Te Aroha Mountain tracks may be complete but that doesn't mean he won't be spending time on the mountain. He's still a keen and energetic tramper. "When he leads a Hallett Tramp, the trampers are not in for an easy walk," laughs Harvey-Webb.