Through the Land of Gum and Home Again.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5385, 8 February 1929, Page 1

Through the Land of Gum and Home Again.

(By

C. W. Malcolm.)

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

But much as one longs for New Zealand again, there is something hard about leaving Sydney. Travel the world and you won’t see parting scenes like those as the ship’s bell clangs in dingy Darling Harbour, and as the thousands of streamers break as tlie gap widens between vessel and shore you leave behind! you hearts of gold. The mud spews up from the churning propellers, the throb of the engine quickens, as you pass the flagship Australia she dips, her ensign in ans.wei- to ours, the roar ■ of. riveting on the great harbour bridge dies away, the wonderful harbour, bar in the world gradually slips behind you, and in a few hours you are out on the limitless, heaving Tasman.

That is Friday afternepn. From then until Tuesday morning may be an eternity, but when you crowd the rail on entering the Auckland hour t’hejre is no word but that of admiration • for the loveliness of .the scene.

Everyone is happy, reflecting- thq very freshness of the climate until the health authorities ce-me aboard and hold you up for three solid hours assuring themselves that somebody has only mosquito bites and not some due plague. Fc ; r three ghastly hours the yellow flag flew aloft, and definite statements of a two weeks’ quarantine on the “little island down the harbour” caused many to take stock of their means of, subsistence. Fishing was mooted, and bridge and swimming and concerts were discussed. Born pessimists cursed the day they had sailed, and optimists, including one who had vowed suicide against quarantine, stood on the stairs leading to the sun-deck, and were the first, to lead) the cheers when the ye,How bunting .was. at, last hauled dcjwn. In conversation with, persons of an intelligent»stamp who had travelled in every part of tbej globe one learned with pride, the unstinted declaration th&t New Zealand of the Southern seas is the unsurpassed of evepy land. Nowhere was to be found finer scenic charm; no climate was more equable ; no cities were so young; so fresh, and so yet able to be, moulded from the lessons of older metrofrom the lessons- of older metropolises ; no other land could claim, to hold such opportunities for her inhabitants, for truly she is the favoured plot, of Nature, and. only the loyal appreciation of hep people can make her always 1 the van of the Nations. ■

. Australia is a vast land) where they calculate and do things on a scale that amazes. Whilq New Zealand argues and wrangles over a bridge -that half a dozen engineers could build in a month or two, t"he people of gfijt .going arid do what they,want to do. Take.-the,great harbour bridge—a .s,c,'heme that eclipses all the engineering feats New Zealand can lay claim tCj —a scheme that has hardly an equal on the globe. Take their underground railway and their enormous irrigation scheme. These are things that v®£y few countries can. launch jnto effect with the readiness of the Australian. And there is money Mr such vast undertakings—money and facilities to open up a hundred- thousand acyes of new land, while we ar ( e fqnding one. Another point one cannot miss is the almost uncanny recuperative power of their soil.. Burnt, parched, and barren, it requires; only a sho-wer of rain and one sees the grjeen grass springing up like magic, and covering the surface. That, of course, is the keynote, lacking which neither crops nor flocks cduld be found in Australia. , The end.