The Eglinton Valley

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21416, 7 March 1935, Page 5 (Supplement)

The Eglinton Valley

A North Otago reader of "The Press Junior," in a letter descibing various activities of her holidays, mentions a short visit to the muchdiscussed Eglinton Valley. "My opinion of the Eglinton Valley," she says, "is briefly 'mud'. The valley is not this, really, but wljere the men are blasting the rock and digging out the clay, that's where you find the mud. If you look above the clouds, though, and let your eyes 'gleam through the rain and the mist', you'll find some lovely bush to look at, all dark green and uneven with red rata patches all round. I liked the valley very much, but it rained in a thick drizzle all the day we were there and we were very wet. We were to have gone to a place called the Key Summit, but it was too wet and misty. The men said that we would not see anything if we did go up. On a clear day, we could have seen

seven lakes from this summit. As it was we saw twelve on the trip to Eglinton and back, so we were well satisfied." The same reader says she has a pet pigeon who is "a most friendly animal. He eats out of our hands, sits on our shoulders and comes when he is called. He lives with the angora rabbits and knows his home now. But he loves to be inside the house where Joey is, the only cat that is not frightened of him (or her). Pigeon has just learned to fly. Manages to fly from the table to the floor or any short distance downwards, but he can't fly up yet except to hop up on his box; he makes enough fuss about that for ten pigeons. "When I first brought him home he had many pen feathers still and couldn't feed himself. So I made him a beak out of tin and fed him on oatmeal soaked in water. As soon as he learned to eat wheat he , would not touch the oatmsai."—_ ,