INNOCENTS ABROAD

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 88, 19 June 1946, Page 6

INNOCENTS ABROAD

I DISCOVER THE WAIOEKA GORGE

(By Contrib)

The above title means absolutely nothing and could just as easily have read ‘I discover Opotiki’ but who would wish to discover Opotiki, unless it be because it lies at the mouth of the Waioeka Gorge? To return to my story, a service car leaves Rotorua, “I am sorry, did I say a service car? Let call it ‘Vibrating Annie,’ just as some districts have a train called ‘The Wild Cat.’ Well, Vibrating Annie sets out from Rotorua at approximately 8 a.m., but on'this particular morning, it wasn’t even approximately, but it did eventually start, and between bursts of speed meandered in the .general direction of Whakatane. After having progressed a few hundred yards the heads of the passengers commenced to vibrate in unison with Annie, and to a great extent they lost interest in everything and lived in anticipation of the driver, at one of his stops, turning off the engine, if not to save the benzine at least to give the passengers a respite from that throbbing.

Oh for a ‘Cuppa’

Eventually reaching the city of the Plains the passengers found alas, that time did not permit of a cup of tea and they were hurled into space in a wild endeavour to overtake that lost half hour. Approaching the Taneatua overhead bridge a grinding of brakes startled the passengers out of their lethargy and they found gentle Annie against an electric power pole with most of the door hinges affected on that side, and a mob of cattle on the other.

Under instructions from a passenger Annie’s locks are manipulated and off she went like a startled steer, eventually arriving at Opotiki after midday with the passengers having little confidence in the future and their tongues hanging out.

A call goes up “Ten minutes before the Gisborne bus leaves”—a dash for the rest rooms: and after waiting your turn ycMi discover that there is no time to make the nearest tea shop and swallow a bite. A timid enquiry is made when the next stop will be, and if there is time for a cup of tea there? Yes, refreshments can be had at Matawai, and with a jolt we leave Opotiki in search of the elusive halfhour and a still more vague and mythical rail-car, the objective of one passenger.

Flaming Youth

Let me describe our new driver; he is youthful, skilful and an inveterate chain smoker, much to the discomfort of the fair sex and the children. Personally I would give him a smoking compartment'of his own. A second John Gilpin, but this time he rides a flying tin can. A word to this speedster—“my son, one of these days you are going to hit a slightly deeper rut and the whole thing will disintegrate and you and your passengers will find yourselves sitting on the road with the wreckage strewn around like so many poached eggs on toast.” Speeding towards the hills like a train approaching a tunnel we sweep around the bend, the river on our right, and the cliffs on our left, and for the doubters there is a notice “Waioeka Gorge.” Those who have travelled through New Zealand will admit that the beauties of this country cannot be excelled, but if it is scenery you want, travel in your own car!

A misty rain develops, to lift at times to show bush clad ridges rising one above the other, mountain torrents —white-flecked, joining the larger river, and it in turn gradually reducing in size as the road climbs.

Meantime with passengers sick to the right of us and to the Jeft, those behind have long since sunk into the silence of despair. But onward we rush. When endurance seemed at an end some humorist of a road service A.A.A. Patrol has planted beside the road “halfway through the Gorge.” At least he could have spared us that. Let us suffer in silence with the hope that just round the corner lies the goal. But no, we now commence to climb more determinedly, the river growing ever smaller and more wild. Can we hold on, breathe

the living. No, all is lost. Another notice “5 miles to the end of the Gorge.” And what a climb, twisting

and turning, turning and twisting, higher and higher, the river but a stream in the valley far below. What scenery, but what endurance. A few houses at 2000 ft., a store, a hotel, a jolt, and miraculously the unconscious revive and stagger into the crisp air to the first port of call and then stand huddled about in little groups in the hotel lounge drinking their first cup of tea for six to eight hours. Others more disconsolate wander about on mother earth, or sink into armchairs that do not at least move so much. But on we must go through rain and mud. What a race, these New Zealanders! No wonder they helped so much to win the war. Why the stoics of old have nothing on them. But, praises be! The worst is over, in long spirals w r e descend with the pull of gravity added to that of our worn out engine to the plains below. The goal is indeed in sight, and slowly what is left of those jaded tourists begins to revive and they bend with their driver in the urge that the railhead may be reached in time. What care they that the ninety and nine may suffer as long as one can make that rail car, and so right to the station we go.

But woe to me; the thing has gone, and at demure pace we glide to rest at the Gisborne Service Station. Slowly we uncoil from cramped positions and stagger across the road to the hotel lounge, and then on to our rooms. Perhaps another cup of tea if proprietor Verran can see his way, but sadly he shakes his head. “My staff do not come on till 6 p.m. and it is but 4.30 now. W-o-u-g-h !