OVER IN WESTLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 11 January 1929, Page 5

OVER IN WESTLAND

THE “SOMETHING HIDDEN.” (By Mona Tracy in “X.Z. Herald.’’) ••Over in Westland,” say the Canterbury folk, lifting their eyes to the long snow-capped line of the Southern Alps. ‘‘Over in Westland. . . It is always so with plainsmen. Invariably they find provocation in n range of high, forbidding mountains. The hill-born knows bills and love; them. It is natural for him to wander from bosomy hill to bosomy hill, to dip down into gentle valleys amt make his way across wimpiing creeks, it cosl so little eifort to climb a little hill. To cross a mountain range is a vastly different matter. Here is the old. hungry desire of the human heart to vanquish natural obstacles—to sc, beyond the far horizon. Thmi, too. there is glamour in the word “west.” From the time when some early migratory tribe of Europe eame out on the shores of the North Sea and wondered what lay belli ml its cold, grey surge, men have sent their thoughts winging westward. They have talked of the west, sung of it, lived for what it might hold, died for what it did not yield them. Correspondingly, the word Westland is magical. Westland, the land of the west, the land beyond the mountains. Who, especially if he he a plainsman, could fail to quicken to its appeal? "When Canterbury people say “Over in Westland—” they say it with a touch of wistfulness, with more than a hint of longing. Something tells them that on the long, bare leagues of the Canterbury plains, stripped of their primeval beauty and re-clothed after the ideal of an old-world landscape, Romance has no abiding place; but over in Westland she still lives. Oh, think the plainlolk, what a desirable place is the land beyond the mountains! Come, climb the provocative' mountains, go higher and still higher; and then, having attained the summit, let us go down with a dream in our eyes into magical,- magical Westland! THE SEEKERS.

The thrill of going over the Alps for the first time was mine just over two years ago. Since then I have been into Westland many times, have travelled its highways and trodden its by-ways. Each time I have, gone as a discoverer, each time have I been thrilled anew but never will the journey be quite so glamorous as it was on that day two years ago when, in company of some seven hundred other excursionists, I took a there-and-back-in-one-day trip into Westland. As the long train climbed from the plains to the tussocky foot-hills, and from the foot-hills to the higher ridges, I sought to read in the faces of my fellow adventurers, the motive that had brought- them so far afield. Inthe end I deckled that, whether we were aware of it or not, we most of us went for no reason other than to find a “something hidden over the ranges. . .

To conquer the mountain peak, to journey into the west—these things were in the eyes of the excursionists as, the long tunnel cleared, the train emerged into the sunlight of Otira Valley. Even though we had conic by train and not, as should proper adventurers, afoot; even though any excursion must necessarily be a banal affair, there was something triumphant about us. Wo had conquered the mountain, we had journeyed into the west; and wo had found the Something Hidden. JOURNEY’S END.

What, then, did we find? In the first place, loveliness incredible, the beauties of jagged peak and softlyroumled hill; lakes that were like sheers of lapus lazuli, ringed about with olivine; valleys' that wandered lazily north or west; rivers tender and rivers fierce;, and above all, the glory of virgin forests billowing over the landscape in illimitable seas of green. Wo found the Gold Coast, tho Black Coast, the Coast of a thousand charms; wo saw Kanieri and the amber lights in the incomparable Arnold River; and we looked on Tasman’s Sea. Nor was the sensation of adventuring left behind when, the beauties of mountain and forest passed, we came out on the sea-coast. There are people who will actually tell you that Greymouth is frankly ugly, that Hokitika’s main street is laughable. Yet, on that day, ifor two blissful hours I prowled about Hokitika, convinced that at the earliset possible moment T travel to Hokitika again; for here is romance yet unwritten, a tale to be told.

Should you doubt me—and I suspect there are people who will—l ask you to stand in Revell Street and vision tho town as it was in the golden sixties. Picture the ships from San Francisco and Sydney and Hobart Town crowded into the river, the litter of diggers’ dufi'el along the beach, and the noisy, cluttered streets. Then come and persuade mo, if you can, that you find Hokitika either uninteresting or unromantic.

Even in tho town’s quaint little library there could bo spent a. week of profitable days. I defy anyone to read, unmoved, the records of human endeavour contained in the old newspaper files. The hardships df the goTilseekers who pushed their way into precipitous ravines and opened up new claims, the tragedies of the many wrecks, with their appalling loss of life on beach and bar, the tales of the trail-makers, the buslimen, the surveyors they are there enshrined for all time. The story of early Westland is an epic in which every New Zealander should take wholesome pride. THE WESTLAND OF TO-DAY. And the Westland to-day? To me there is romance in the fact that, the

age of gold now past, men win > from the earth a more solid wealth’in tho form of black daimonds; and in tho knowledge that many descendants of those who either tramped or-shipped to the Coast of the hectic sixties are today living in Westland as miners, as sawyers or as farmers. It is the old tale over again oif Nature beckoning men to new country with a finger dipped in gold. Having thus lured them to scratch the soil in the hope of gaining quick wealth, she retains them to serve her own needs.

In Westland, then, I discovered! romance, beauty, interest. Some unforgettable pictures of that day { will always remain. Tho historic wharf ati Hokitika, tho snarling Grey River,’ the desolation of tho old Brunner mine, placid Lake Moana, a little slim rimu standing like an exquisite fdrest maiden on tho edge of the bush, - the last glimmer df the afterglow above Tasman Sea—and a plainsman' ’had * found Something Hidden. A plainsman came back to the plains, t-o‘say wistfully, with the other plainsfolk—“Over in Westland. . .” -V And now, whenever I find myself unable any longer to withstand the provocation of the Southern Alps, I agaihgo. adventuring over the ranges to find mo the Gold Coast, the Black Coast, tho Coast of a thousand charms.