NEW ZEALAND ALPS.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 775, 13 October 1922, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND ALPS.

Sir Martin Conway, in Hie Westminster Gazette, reviews Mr Turner’s “New Zealand Alps.” He described the book as the writing of an authentic mountain lover. “There are such people,” he says. “They love mountains as others love music, Whatever their business in

life may be, its ultimate purpose is to qlimb. partly for the mere sake of climbing) but mainly becarus* thus the.vj come in c-ontaqt \flth mountains are siirrounded b ythem, look up to* them and down upno them, and generally, as it were, take possesion cf them. Mr Turner’s business has taken him to various parts of the four continents. It took him, for instance, to Siberia in winter time. What did he forthwith proceed to do ? He hurried into the heart of the unexplored Altai and set hjlsnself to scramble. It was the same in South America* Aconcagua came in sight and off he went to ascend it. Now he lives in New Zealand

anct every climbing season finds him among the hills. A like impulse urges him to describe his doings, and he does so with a jqough and

tumble energy, which somehow, anyhow, transmits tc> the readejr’ the , writer’s passionn. Grammar does nqt trouble him. He is ont tied by any conventional terms. He rushes on from one mountain to the next sometimes in t-he sane paragraph, No map accompanies his volume, and you have to tumble through rivers in flood stumble over ridges from cne valley to another, arrive on snow fields, pass through avalanche tracks miles wide, and arrive on

summits whose relative relation to

one another you do not know, but all the. time you feel the presence of an urging activity and . a great vitality. When the author is not climb-

ing he skips. There can be no doubt that the expeditions recorded in this book have involved great endurance no little skill, and often ’seme real danger. It is a contribution to the tale ol* mono" fin adventure and it adds a considerable chap tei to the story of the exploration of the great New Zealand ranges.”