A BEAUTY SPOT

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2605, 29 October 1915, Page 6

A BEAUTY SPOT

THE TAUHERINIKAU CAMP TENTS AMONG THE MANUKA A RUN PAST THREE TRAINING GROUNDS Trentham is our biggest military institution of its kind, and it may be some little time beforo it is deposed from its leading position, but other big- training grounds are growing not far away, and tho camp at Tauherinikau is, to say, tho least, going to rival Trentnam.

It is but a few hours' run from Wellington to Tauherinikau, and yet one sees many a sign of war by the wa-jr. Chief of these signs are three big military camps and 9000 soldiers in training. In this season, late spring, tho run out is delightful. Tho Hutt Valley with its green stretches of pasture land and its curtains and drapings of weeping willows, is beautiful indeed, and the Rimutakas are a wall of gorgeous yellow with the bloom of broom and gorse. Trentham has altered much in tho twelve months which have passed since its inception. Wliero once the passer-by looked out upon a host of white, conical tents, he now beholds a town of wooden huts, cook-houses, hospitals, shops, offices, halls, and a railway running into the military town. A few miles further up, on tho side of the line opposite to' that on which Trentham Camp is built, is the Mangaroa Camp. The Indian tents in use at Mangaroa are not as attractive in appearance as the type of tent to which we have become accustomed in New Zealand, and a camp composed of them is not so picturesque as a camp of bell-tents. Tho new camp is muddy just now. However, the tents are said to be very useful, and tho mud difficulty is not insuperable. Over the range, past' the Wairarapa Lake, and on to Featherston and Tauherinikau I

Four miles from Featherston, along the Tauherinikau Road, is tlio Tauherinikan Camp. In some respects Tauherinikau stands alone. Down the quiet country road one finds the rural outlook at its best—fine fields, and the roadsido fringed with a pleasing solection of English and Australian trees. The present Tauherinikau Camp site is a glorious spot. The land is dead level, and studded with native trees. Bell-tents blouse the troops in training there, and these tents are set 'among the trees and tall manuka scrub. From the Toad the camp looks well, but within tho confines of the training area one imagines himself in a hugo picnic camping ground. Here a circle of manuka, and in the centre a marquee! There a clump of scrub, and snugly underneath it a tentl So strong is the picnic aspect that the military element as scarcely apparent; one does not readily grasp the fact that he is in tho heart of a busy army camp. Two miles nearer Featherston. than the temporary camp, 'the new permanent camp is being Duilt. The aim of the Defence Department, it is understood, is to inaKo the new oamp the most up-to-date in the country. The work is now well advanced, and quite a township of buildings lias already sprung np.

A railway from tho main lino has been run to tho camp—a stretch of a mile or more—and in the camp there are three sets of rails. Numerous huts are nearing completion, and the ground in tho vicinity of the lines is piled with timber, windows, drain-pipes, and sawn-aff tree-trunks, which look suspiciously like butchers'-blocks in the making. On the opposite sido of the road to the growing camp is the homo of the men who are building the big new camp. It is a Public Works Department settlement, and it houses no fewer than 700 workmen—mostly car'penters and labourers. These artisans and labourers are well paid, and if one sets down their average pay at 10s. daily (probably the average is greater) an idea of the large outgoings in wages may be arrived at). It means: —Daily, £350; weekly, £2100; monthly, £9100; quarterly, £27,300. If tho building of the camp extends over a period of six months with all these men engaged, the stream of wages will have reached a volume of nearly £35,000.

hat sort of a task is it building these big military camps? How do they treat the men P

"Oil,' says tlie average man, "tliey treat you as well as they can. But you will always-find grumbling in a temporary camp of 700 men." Too true, here is an illustration of how impossible some of the irreconcilables are. The story is being freely told in Featherstou that when the National Registration cards wero distributed at the new camp-in-the-■making, one of the workmen ran his eyes over his card, and then tore it into little pieces, and cast them' from him, The boss was near by. When the defiant malcontent looked round he noticed the boss's finger beckoning him. The boss looked through tho time-book, ascertained the amount of cash owing to tlie man, and gave him his money, with two words— "Got out I"

But the place where discontent is an unknown term is the present Taulierinikau Camp. It is such a restful, ideal spot m so many attractive ways tiiat the little gratings of military training and the trifling inconveniences of camp life are readily overlooked and ultimately forgotten. A man from a Wellington city office was encountered there. He used to be pale, and mention in tho daily weather report of prospects of a southerly was_ enough to induce him to get inside his top-coat. Now a deep brown has banished the whiteness of his skin, and he looks hard and fit to weather the dirtiest Arctic snap with the toughest salt that sails the main. How does lie lilt© tho life?

It's the greatest life he ever lived. He is keen to get to the front, and seo some fighting, but except for that ho would like to go on Jiving at Tauherinikau for ever.

"Tho open air will do me. Tell llioso boys in town they don't know what they arc missing. They ought to tako it on. This is the life!"