Climbing the Otago Hills

Southland Times, Issue 24227, 10 September 1940, Page 3

Climbing the Otago Hills

PEAKS, PACKS, AND MOUNTAIN TRACKS. By W. Scott Gilkison. Whitcombe and Tombs, Dunedin. Price 4/6. The growing literature of alpine travel receives a new contribution in this unpretentious record of climbing in the South Island of New Zealand. Above all it is a tribute to the mountains of Otago. Mr Gilkison belongs to a generation that has “found the hills.” Starting many times from the Rees Valley, he has climbed towards the peaks that dominate a mountainous region. He knows what it is to carry a 601 b swag, to cross the rocky streams, to bivouac under soaking bush, to start before dawn on a climb above the snow-line, to miss the sunimit by a short half-hour, or to snatch the triumph of a successful arrival on the roOf of Otago. Mr Gilkison tells of the hardships and the that are known to all climbers, and he writes with the ease, and frequently the casualness, of a man who yarns by the camp fire at the end of a long day’s tramp. Other climbers will be glad to make their journeys once again in these pages; and stay-at-home readers will enjoy a vicarious adventure There are some good photographs.