YOUR CLUB AND MINE AN OPEN PAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 172, 11 October 1927, Page 5

YOUR CLUB AND MINE AN OPEN PAGE

Each Tuesday afternoon a corner will be reserved for original contributions of general interest to womenfolk. The subject matter is for you to choose —whatever topic Interests you may also be of interest or amusement to others, whether it be about your hobbies, experiences, or merely amusing musings about the ordinary round of the day. A book prize is offered weekly for the best effort, which should be brief, plainly written, and sent to “Your Club and Mine/* THE SUN, Auckland. The prize has been awarded this week to Miss M. W. Clarke, Aratonga Avenue, for the following article: THE BUSH DRIVE Slowly we round a sharp hairpin bend in the road and, passing under a giant old pohutukawa in full bioom, pass on along the foreshore of Rotoiti. The lake looks very beautiful from this angle, deep sapphire with tinysparkling wavelets glinting over its surfa.ce. Far away on the other shores the high cliffs, beautiful in their bush clad beauty, make a fitting setting for the Immense sheet of water. Along the road we go, past a quaint old wharo and a cabin or two, past fields of kuama to a spot where our road meets another. It is a very quiet place this lakeside village; few persons are about —several old Maoris gathering the kumara crop in a neighbouring field; two or three boys playing by the lakeside —that is all. But we must go on. The last sound is that of the waves of Rotoiti gently lapping on the shingly shore. For many miles the road is bordered with rolling grass paddocks, with here and there a clump of bush. We pass some Maori boys and air our knowledge in a hearty “tenakoe," for which we receive a grave nod and then a broad dusky smile., A 1; last, however, comes the bush Thick clumps of fern, clusters of native trees, each striving to oust the other, and wild tangles of bush creepers and the tenacious “lawyer.” Mile after mile of greenery—that is the charm of our native bush. And the smell, who has not breathed the bush air! It has a distinctive aroma of its own, sweet, damp, earthy, musky, it lingers long: in the nostrils; it is so fresh, so pungent in its odour. The track is muddy and grass-grown, and has a gradual rising tendency. Up, up we climb and the only sounds that break the silence are the chugchug of the engine and the calling o t the bush birds. They are very tame, the birds, and one perched on a bough near the roadside causes us to halt and listen in rapture to its fullthroated song. Up on the high notes it goes, down on the low, voicing aloud its joy in the morning air. Then of a sudden it ceases, cocks its tiny head to one side, listens. Comes the answering call of its mate and with airy spring it leaves the bough and flies in the direction from which the call c a life. Once more we set off and after a quarter of an hour’s ride come once more to a standstill. On one side of the road is a clearing away down 100 feet or more.. In the clearing is a tini-rough-hewn cabin. Round the cabin a .few cattle of a shaggy, large-horned variety wander round and round munching here and there from th<= luscious herbage of the cleared space It is a lonely place, this little mountain cabin, yet it has a strange and touch ing: appeal. It seems to suggest a happy solitude, an utter peacefulness which has a strong appeal for the city mind. We turn from it at last and gaze through a bush-clad vista to that other secret of the; bush road. ’Wa\ down several hundred feet below lies a black lakelet, of stygian blackness it is, a most awesome sight. It is a strange thing to find right in the heart of the bush and has a fearsome look even in the bright sunshine of this December morning. It is like a black pearl, rare and repellant, even in its undoubted beauty. We return to the car and bidding far ewell to the lonely little bush cabin, start once more on our exploring trip. The road, now gradually descends. Evidently we have been on a bushcovered plateau ridge, a common enough thing in this part of New Zea land. The descent is very gradual, but the bush is still as thick, especially in those parts where the road winds round in sharp corkscrew’ bends. Noise in the bush is so startling that the sound of an axe busily chopping away warns us of the presence of some other person. It is so, for upon rounding a specially tricky bend in 4.he track we come upon a stalwart Maori

busily chopping into the trees on the roadside. It seems a shame this ruthless hacking of forest trees that have taken so many years to reach maturity After passing the time of day with the chopper we are not long in reaching; our destination. That is Lake Okataina. This lake surely is the most beautiful of all the Rotorua lakes It is dark green and very deep; the surface is as smooth as glass and the bushy cliffs that border is are mirrored in the dark green of the water. It stretches, for miles, so it seems, until a sudden curve hides the rest from view. A little rough-made jetty stretches out a short distance into the lake. The trees dip their lower branches into the water, which swirls lazily round them. Near the shore the water is very clear and stones and pebbles on its rocky bottom are easily visible. A boy paddles round close to the shore, in the remains of an old Maori war canoe, patched at one end with a benzine case. His paddle is a sturdy ti tree stake. No doubt he dreams, as he paddles about, of the days when the Maoris paddled this self-same lake in this self-same canoe, flaunting their fine delicately shaped paddles and chanting their lilting war song. The picture fades and the lake shows itself once more as it is to-day, dreamy, calm, peaceful; in its sombre beauty a striking contrast indeed to the sparklingly happy Rotoiti. It is infinitely preferable though in its own sad beauty, for its beauty has a charm, a quality all its own which endears it to the memory. M. W. CLARKE.