A TRIP TO THE WEST COAST.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 100, 27 April 1878, Page 2

A TRIP TO THE WEST COAST.

[Br " F.»]

(Concluded.)

The enterprising people of Greymouth seeing what a market had been! created for their wares, lost no time in connecting their town with Kumara, aDd between the two places there is an excellent wooden tramway, seventeen miles in length, on which merchandise is conveyed with ease, while, at the same time, it forms by no means an unpleasant means of transit for passengers. Our walk from the township of Kumara to the. diggings and back had been full of interest, but owing to the excessive heat of the sun, and the hurried manner in which the limited : amount of time at our disposal had compelled, us to get over the ground, it had proved verytiring, and we were by no means sorry to find ourselves seated in the tramway car, and 1 to see that our route, for a long way at least,: for the line was so straight that we could trace it for two or three miles ahead, lay. through the pleasant shade of the bush. There were but three of us, and the horse' by which we were drawn made very light of : his work, aud could have trotted along at a. good rate, but five miles an hour being the regulation pace, our driver was not allowed: to exceed it. For the first two or three: miles the travelling was very pleasant, but: after a time it began to grow exceedingly monotonous. There was thick bush on each side of us, through which not even a,. casual! glimpse was to be obtained of the adjacent i country. The shade was very grateful, hot' and tired as we were, but when we had covered a couple of miles, we couid not help ! noticing how painfully like the pine trees we I had just left behind us were those immediately in our front, and what a wearisome; similarity existed between the uudergrowth to our right and that to our left. It wasi with intense satisfaction, then, after a little over an hour of this kind of travelling, that! we noticed the bush gradually growing thinner and thinner, and the first* peep that! we obtained of the blue water of the Tere- : makau, a little to our right, was more grateful' than I can express. A few minutes later ! and we were on the bank of the river,' the bed of which was over a hundred feet: below us. This being a halting place, there ; was, of course, an " hotel," where passengers, were afforded, an opportunity of testing the quality of a West Goast brew, and I am not* ashamed to say that copious draughts of the invigorating fluid wee quickly, disposed of,; and much enjoyed by our little party of: three. This important duty having been, fulfilled to the satisfaction of both the land-! lord and his visitors, we went out to take a: look around us. Standing on. the edge of! the hank we could see in the river below a : boat, evidently waiting to convey us to the s opposite side, but there was another mode of! conveyance that possessed more attractions.! From ODe bank to the other, for a distance of: 760ft, there were stretched wire ropes, and as: we could see that preparations were being' made for the cage to eross we naturally wanted; to know why it should not carry us as-well as; our carpet bags. There was ho objection; raised, but we were formally warned that : the passage must be taken at our own risk,! and that the Company would not be liable for any accident that. might occur, as the wires had only just been stretched, and ; before being open to passenger traffic they! had to be inspected and approved of by aj Government engineer. It is scarcely neces- ' sary to say that we willingly agreed to the: terms, and in a very few minutes we' -had! taken our seats in the cage, which was very' similar to the tramway car we had just left, ! with the exception that the wheels were! above instead of below. These wheels, which are grooved, run on two wires, white another ■ endless wire is attached to the car and passes; round a revolving cylinder on the left, bank, which is set in motion by a small; steam engine erected for this special; purpose. We took our seats ; the; signal was given, and immediately we! found ourselves passing over the river, which! was flowing at least 100 foet below, at a good : pace, and as smoothly aud easily as possible. In less than a minute and a half from our' leaving the " hotel " on the lef tibank, during 1

which time we had travelled 250 yards, we were landed at another " hotel " on the right bank. Here another car and horse were in waiting, and we were very shortly on the road once more. Between the Teremakau and Greymouth the tramway runs along the beach, and the scenery is little, if at all, more interesting than the road through the bush of which I have spoken. The sea, which was then almost as smooth as the river, was on our left, and low hills cramped the view on the right. For the whole distanee> some ten or twelve miles, there were traces of old diggings, flumes, races, broken water wheels, heaps of washdirt denuded of the golden treasure it once contained, very shaky wooden aqueducts, melancholy looking excavations, and all the evidences of a busy populatiou having at one time been engaged there, but now all wa3 silent, dreary, aud deserted. Every now and then, too, we would pass little clusters of houses, but they only added to the generally depressing effect, for many of them were empty, and all, or nearly all, had a thoroughly seedy appearance. The stations, or stopping places, oa the tramway are pretty numerous, and are, as a rule, marked by a roof over the line forming a sort of open shed, and an " hotel •'• at the side. How many oC these we passed I ani not prepared to «~ -- * ?fc my recollection of them is that they were so oft recurring as to be almost us monotonous in their frequency as the pine trees in the first six miles of our ride. Towards seven o'clock in the evening we were all heartily glad to find that we were approaching Greymouth, and I, being the only new chum, was surprised to see the efctent of the town, on the outskirts of which was a fine roomy hospital* and a little further On a tery capacious school house biiilt on the same plan, and nearly as large, as that at Hokitika. We passed a number of. comfortable looking cottages,, many of them having in front a well kept little patch of garden, and in the course of . a few minutes after entering the suburbs arrived at the tramway terminus iv the centre of the town. It was now nearly dark, so that our inspection had to be deferred until the next morning. The Charles Edward had. reached Grejmouth from Hokitika. befote we did, So that the first thing to do was to ascertain what time we had at our disposal for looking about us. - A few hours was the utmost that Captain Whitwell could allow, so that I was very reluctantly compelled to give up all idea of visiting the Brucner mine, a treat to which I had been looking forward with pleasurable anticipations. Cx reymouth is beyond all questiou the most permanent looking and the best kept town on the West Coast. The principal street, which boasts of an asphalte pavement (take notice of that ye City Councillors of Nelson), is on the bank of, and faces , the river, and is protected by a solid stone wall. This is skirted for a considerable distance by piles and timber , work, forming an excellent , wharf , at which, there is ample room for a number oi vessels to lie. The railway ruus along the outer edge of the street, and the coal trucks, each of which carries about six tons, are brought to the vessel's side. Extensive protective works are beiug carried on near the mouth of the river, for which stone is being brought all day long from the upper end of the town by a small steam engine on a line qf railway laid down for the purpose through the main street. There are some very good buildings, including a wellstocked public library, aud on the whole a general air of. comfort and prosperity pervades the town. I was surprised, however, to learn that nearly the whole of it is built on a Maori reserve; no longer leases than 21 years can be obtained, and for these the rent, in all the central portion of the town, is the nice little sum of £1 per foot per annum. It is not to be Avondered at, then, if some of •the houses and shops have rather a crampod appearance. On the opposite side of the river, at the entrance to the Grey Gorge, is a melancholy little collection of seedy-looking houses, the half of one of which was hanging over the bank, the river having swept away part of its foundation. This is Cobden. I did not cross over to ifc, nor have I much to say about it. The sole remark I have to make is that when I want to retire from the busy world, and take up my residence in some sequestered but cheerful spot, I don't think I shall select Cobden. A little above Cobden a gang. of men were engaged in. blasting the .hillside and removing, the mountains into the river, which has on more than one occasion :, displayed an .inclination to desert the Greymouth side, an.d form for itself a channel near Cobden. I had but half an hour to walk up the gorge on the railway line ; I had not time to examine the construction of the railway minutely, nor have I a sufficient knowledge of engineering matters to render my opinion of any value, but from what I ,sayr I was perfectly able to understand why such an outcry had been raised with regard to the. route selected, ,0a the side on which . I wa3 standing, the inter was bounded by steep hills rising almost perpendicularly from the water's, edge, so precipitous that . massive stone walls had to be built ,to protect the rail- . waycuttings.andtb prevent the hill side from falling on to' them.. .On the other side was a perfectly level country stretching away up the gorge as far as the eye could reach. It occurred to me that the politician had far more to say to the selection of that line than the engineer. By this time the " Charlie " had steam up, and was announcing her impatience to be off by. a series of shrieks, so that I had to hurry on board, and to bid good-bye to a place where I should have very much liked to spend at least two or three more days. We were soon under way and crossing the bari where the heavy rollers very quickly compelled the majority of thp passengers to takV- to their bunks. We arrived at Westport at night, and 'sailed the next' morning early, arriving at Nelson on Sunday at nine o'clock, after an absence of ; six days .almost to the hour. And so a very ;pleasant holiday^-, whose sole fault was its ; shortness, was brbught to a close. ,