THROUGH UREWERA

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 138, 7 December 1929, Page 10

THROUGH UREWERA

NOT THIS CHRISTMAS

ROAD NOT COMPLETED

UNSPOILED COUNTRY

A good many car owners have decided for a now and very special holiday tour this year, to Napier, to Waikaremoana, then round the lake by the new road, through the wild and beautiful hill and bush land of the Urewera, and on to Kotorua. It cannot be done this Christmas, for though the greater part of tho new construction is: roughed out—much remains to be done in the way of surface formation— there is a gap of some miles between Ruatahuna m the very heart of the Urewera, and the lake, and between Ruatahuna and re Whaiti, near the beginning of the plain run to Rotorua, there are a couple of bridges to be attended to, though this length of road is now passable from the Rotjrua end. It may be possible for cars to get through shortly atter Easter, perhaps by Easter, but it is out of the question this Christmas. Apart from its future usefulness as a splendid tourist route—for New Zealand tourists as well as overseas visitor—the new road is of first importance in connection with the building of the transmission line which will connect the Waikaremoana and Arapuni hydro-electric stations. This line will skirt the lake and then cut across the Urewera, and so broken and rugged is this stretch of country that the cable spans will have to b© a great length, one or two of almost a mile. This' means much heavier steel towers than usual and the work of transporting the steel work through this densely bushed and broken country would be tremendously increased were there not a fair roadway enabling the transport of the tower members to within easy distance of the points chosen for their erection, to which the steel will be hauled through the bush. The transmission line will for the most part be well away from the roadway and thus the cutting of a fairly wide swathe of bush beneath the power lines—essential to guard against the flashing or power to earth—will not interfere with the beauty of the forested hills as seen from the road. The men who carry out this transmission line work are used to bush, some of them sick of the sight of it, in fact, but they are definite on that point: That the Urewera is so beautiful that every effort must be made to disturb the forest as littlo as possible. A SPLENDID SCENIC TOUR. When the route is opened it will offer as varied and splendidly scenic a tour as can be had anywhere in the Dominion, and may, likely enough, be proclaimed by visitors to New Zealand, as one of the finest anywhere. Tho high lights will be a run of fifteen or so miles round Lake Waikaremoana, generally at sufficient height above the water to afford comprehensive views, leading to the Urewera, ' where the Maoris are still Maoris, living, when any distance back from the roads and tracks, the very simple life. There are still in the backblocks there Maoris who understand English very imperfectly and many old people who cannot speak more than a word or two of the pakeha's language. Kua still lives there, but so well away from trampers and pack horse trails that few people see him nowadays. . Not much is heard of him, for he is getting old and apparently his one time wild enthusiasm for. the rights of his tribe as against the provisions of the law has waned. In the Urewera one is impressed again with the truth of the saying that it is 1 never too hot for a fur coat. The ladies back there do not sport squirrel or mink, or even rabbit, as a. general thing, but they do run to sheep skins, and no matter how broiling hot the day, and in the clearings it does get warmish, it's- sheep skin weather. Life seemingly runs along very easily. AND MAORI BABIES. What particularly, strikes the few who go through this country by car to Kuatahuna, by foot or horse back further in, is the young life. Quails and quail chicks scuttling across the rougli roads and tracks over the clearings to the shelter of the bush, catch tho eye first; the quail families are disturbed at ever}' bend, and there are plenty of bends. Maori pigs roam along the road and through the bush with piglets in surprising quantity. How the owners know their own pigs and how they catch them is a puzzle, for they are all much the same and all of much the same wildness. The half wild cattle have a proper complement of wilder calves, and foals there are aplenty. Whether it is that this country especially suits horse flesh or whether tho Natives started well and have looked to the breeding well, the fact is that the horses there are splendid animals, glossy and full of go. It is horse country, not motor country. But what strikes one most of all are the Maori babies, any amount of them, happy kids in all stages from the quite new, carried in Native fashion in the loop of a shawl or mat at their mothers' backs, to stocky youngsters too curious to stay away but a good deal to shy at first to come too near. If tho cost of living is the main factor in determining the size of families, then the Urewere is a paradise for the ambitious family man. BI«D LIFE AND RAGWORT. Bird life in the bush is still very plentiful, tuis and Native pigeons in particular, cuckoos, too, at certain seasons, and now and again the imported pheasant shows np. One complaint made by a camper near Ruatahuna last summer very nicely sums up the bird population thereabouts: "These damned tuis, they wake you before daylight and don't knock off till after dark, otherwise it's groat." And after all that is no very sad complaint. One recent introduction to the Urewera is not welcome, and may in a few years run riot unless someono makes it his business to see that it is taken in hand—ragwort. Among undesirables it is particularly so. Apparently nothing will eat it, it spreads rapidly, and each plant covers a fair area of ground, smothering everything beneath It. When the bright yellow flower heads are out it makes a show, but that is all that can be said for it. 'At present the Natives just take it for granted, and it springs up in every clearing and spreads along the roadway, and even those who have fixed opinions of it plainly prefer to watch it grow, flower, and spread as only a bad weed will to putting in an hour or two pulling it out by the roots—"Another day when the sun'a not quite so hot."