Through the Land of Gum and Home Again.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5381, 30 January 1929, Page 1

Through the Land of Gum and Home Again.

(By

C. W. Malcolm.)

(Tlie opinions and criticisms expressed here are; not necessarily those of the Editor.) PART 111.

Now, 1 must assure -my readers, particularly those who hail from the land of the Sunny South, that I entered Australia with an open mind : I was no biassed Ne;w Zealander searching the .weaknesses of. other lands beside my Own. As a matter of fact. New Zealand had ,so bored me that 1 had gonq to the other, confine of the Tasman to find the wonderful and. the magnificent. I was prepared to wander Australia with opening eyes and gaping mouth, and tp return to the land of my nativity with a fund! of. criticism that would make the; mere New Zealander bow in reverential awe before her older and more glorious sister Dominion.. Therefore with the same open mind as 1 prepared myself to laud Australia with dlo I express those things also which must indelibly stamp New Zealand with the royal se;al of Providence which gives her the insignia of office in the van of the nations.

We are gathering, speed in a N.S.W. train. With sickening apprehension we feel ourselves swaying and clattering, barging and rattling over thousands of points andi metals that cross and intersect and radiate and converge, amidst a parallel highway of. eight tracks for nearly ten miles, out from Sydney. Sometimes there are four trains running, abreast, flashing through suburban stations, howling through darkened' subways, past inward trains running thrqp or four abreast, till you wonder just what would happen if one man made one mistake, if somethitg were half one mistake, if something were half two inches out of plumb. But they have very few accidents —-when they do they make a thorough job. Now, thejre are. several things you cannot dio in an Australian day train. -There are more you can not, do at naght, but leave that till we recount the trip from Sydney to Melbourne by the ninteen hours limited. First, you can’t look out of the window, for the engines never cease to heave out spot and lumps of dirty coal that pepper the; w hole : length of (the train with an angry shower. Second, you cannot keep yourself clean. A forty-mile journey is sufficient to give you and your shirt a that only soap and tubs of water can ever remove. Third, you can’t wash in the lavatory of a moving train. If you can retain a standing position, by the time you have held the silly little’ buttpin long, enough for the trickling stream to fill the basin up to about half-way a lurch of the train carrier the whole basinful on to the floor, and a patient man starts all over again, usually succeeding just as the train pulls up at his d®£tination station. •

The stations are hung, with a profusion of greenery, plants and; ferns rendering qac,h wayside . stopping place an oasis in a wilderness of heat. At each station there hangs in the shade of the eaves a wet-looking canvas waterbag, which is rushed! by the traveller, who secures with a sigh relief a draught of, cold,. clear water that a multitude of the other discomforts of travel. If bush fires are burning, the tourist makes his painful acquaintance; with a breeze that scorches, the features. It is no use putting yplur head out of the window for a cool breath of air, for, it blows hot as from an oven. Tjbe feeling is oppressive to one used tpl finding refreshing zephyrs made to order in any season. We are roaring through cuttings hewn from the massive rock, W rumbling through a tunnel, or squealing on a tortuous curve yrhence we can see our last half-mile of track below us, until we burst through the coast range and start our rattling descent along the edge of the rolling Tasman. Wie pass black coaling villages, immense c,oke ovens with row’s, and rows of typically grjmy rolling-stock, until with a sickening jarring and vibrating the train, having maintained the* average over the line of twenty-five miles in an hour, pulls up once more, this time at Bulli.

Dusty and grimy and stiff, we open the door and. emerge strqtching ourselves, The whistle blows, doors slam noisily, and the train hauls out. Most of the stations are the 'same. There are; two platforms, pine for the up and one for the down track, the shunting yards being kept at a distance. Really, each platform is an independent station. The platforms arq four feet high, there being no thoroughfare allowed, across from one to the other, andl you go out one way only, surrendering your ticket at the gaol-like gate.

The Bulli beach is a fairly popular rqsort, but as beaches are all the same we shall pay oiur attention to our first acquaintance with Australian bush by taking a walk up the famous Bujli Pass to The Lookout. The Australian bush soon begins to pall monotonously. Anything else that it contains apart, from the eternal gum tree may hq counted as negligible. There is nothing but gum tree upon g.um tree in c.ountless thousands. There is no cool shade ; annoying flies continuously pestejr the perspiring traveller as he tramp's, over the dusty, stony bush floor, on which he now and then sees the wriggly track of a snake or tw<y There is no glorious solitude; and silence of the bush as we have in New Zealand, the air the whole time- being filled with a machine-like rasping and whirring

4 aTdTlickimro7h"sep.ts'' tl,r On reaching the road one is passed by motor-cars j carrying waterbags, a precaution | doubt against radiator contingency. Arriving at the Look-out, one finds a refreshment hostel and a rqgulai camping ground for motpir tourists, and! picnic parties, and the immense panorama of coastal strip dotted with townships, and of the mountain

, ranges, behind and the surf-lined, rollI ing blue Tasman before, which, one I obtains from the eminence, will linger long in the memory of the wanderer. It is a sight that compensates for a good deal, but onq cannot forget the train journey ahead back to the capital. (To be continued on Friday.)