A BEAUTIFUL ROAD

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1929, Page 2

A BEAUTIFUL ROAD

ROUTE TO WEIIIiKA. SCENIC HKSOHT EUR. MOTORISTS. (Christchurch Press.) Ono of flic most beautiful routes in the Dominion will shortly ho available to motorists. This is the road to Wehoka. the settlement at the foot of the Eox Glaeior. Seventeen miles from Walio, where tlie hotel is situated from which tourists walk to the Ernnz .lose!’ Glacier, Wehoka is reached by what is generally described as the most magnicent part of the South Westland motor drive. Even more grand than the famous Otira Gorge, the drive traverses won derful forest scenery unequalled in any other part of New Zealand. Thc\ road is, like practically all roads on the West Coast, narrow, but the surface is good and as soon as the bridge over the Waikukupa (mispronounced by West Coasters as Waikupikup and in some instances abbreviated to Kupukup) is rebuilt, is certain to become a favourite holiday route. At present the bridge is out of use, a big land slip last Easter having carried part of it downstream, but rebuilding operations arc in full swing, and it should not he long now before cars are able to cross the structure. The road crosses three saddles and is so winding that service cars take an hour and a half to traverse its seventeen miles, but to an ordinarily careful driver it is quite safe. There is a ford over the Waikukupa which is satisfactory in fine weather, hut it was washed away during the thunderstorm on Wednesday night hist in consequence of which service cars were unable to get through until earn* this week. While so-h hold-ups are unusual, private drivers will feel more safe when the bridge is open again for traffic. What Cowan, the writer on New Zealand scenery, thinks of the distric* is told in the following words: “The traveller- is never likely to forget the wonderful pictures of thunderous mountain gloom and mountain glory which present themselves, clearing up after rain, looking up the wild bush gorge of the Waikukupa to the giants of the Southern Alps.” Private motor-cars have in the.past not been seen to any groat extent on the road because of the lack of accommodation, but recently a modern hostel was built on Cook’s Elat, from which the Fox Glacier may he reached after a tramp through the hush of three miles. At present the approach to the Glacier is fairly rough, necessitating a climb over huge boulders, which, however, proves an easy enough proposition for any fit person, but it is anticipated that by Easter the track will lie completed on the other side ol the stream which flows from the Glacier, a footbridge connecting the two sections. This will enable tourists to avoid the moraine altogether and walk right on to the white ice. from which a wonderful view of the Glacier is obtainable. The bridging of the coastwise road from Westport to Grcymouth, which will shorten the distance between those two centres by forty- miles, omitting ltecfton, and which it is anticipated will shortly he open for traffic,, is being eagerly awaited, and this, with the Glacier road, should make the Coast a considerably more popular holiday resort for motorists than it is even now.