STEAMBOAT TRAVELLING IN NEW ZEALAND.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1540, 11 July 1873, Page 2

STEAMBOAT TRAVELLING IN NEW ZEALAND.

As in Australia, so in New Zealand, says 1 Mr Anthony Trollope, locomotion is effected chiefly by means of coasting steamers. . The boat in which we had come from Melbourne to the Bluff, would pass in its usual course up the eastern coast, and down the western coast of the Middle Island to GreymoutH and Hokitika, and from that place back to Melbourne. This is done every fortnight, and in the alternate weeks another steamer takes the reverse course, reaching Hokitika direct from Melbourne, making its wayto the Bluff, and returning thence to its home at Melbourne. There are also smaller boats plying occasionally from port to pprir—and in this, way the New Zealanders'. travel from one Province to another; but of all the convey^ ances with which I have had dealings, these New Zealand steamboats are the most regularly irregular, and heartbreaking. If a would-be traveller should be informed that steamboats would start from a certain port to another, one on the Ist and one onthe ! 15th of the month, his safest calculation •would probably be to make his arrangements for the Bth. Of course trayelling by sea cannot be made ascertain, as that by land— and, equally of course, boats which depend; for maintenance chiefly on freight must be deSendent on the incidents to which freight' is able. I make no complaint— not even on the score that I never could be at anyplace, at the same time with 'my clothers. I used to be unhappy, but accepted my misfortune as a part of the necessity of the position. But it is right to say that travelling ip. New Zealand was uncomfortable. We could not carry our portmanteaus overland, and therefore trusted them to the steamers with copious addresses, with many injunctions to persons who naturally were not quite so strongly interested in the matter as we were ourselves. > After a long and painful separation, we. and our luggage did come together again ;.'but there was much of intermediate suffering. A hero, but nothing short of a hero, might perhaps sit down conifortably to dinner , with the full-dressed aristocracy of a newly visited city in a blue shirt and ah dld 7 grey shooting jacket. .