A PERFECT WALK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 81, 1 May 1909, Page 6

A PERFECT WALK.

THE TANGARAKAU GORGE. MASGAUOA TO WIIANGAMOMONA. THE PASSIXG OF THE WILDERNESS (Wellington Post.) there arc few perfect walks anywhere. Th t , qualifications are so numerous, so genuinely exacting, that perfection is exceedingly rare. The writer knows of only two'in New Zealand. One is the overland journey from Te Anau to Millord Sound—deihircd on the authority of connoisseurs of experience in many lands to b L , the finest in the world—and the other, of a totally different character, is the forty-mile walk between Mungaroa and 'Whaiigamoiiionu, through the Tangnrakiiu Gorge. The Te Anau-Jlilford Sound trip is on e of New Zealand's tourist assets. It is as well known aud as much photographed almost as Rotorua itself. The track has been trodden hv thousands of pilgrims in search of the'picturesquc; it has been described—well, ill, or indifferently—a hundred tinres over; its particular beauties in various aspects ar e a weekly adornment of the illustrated papers; it is one of the brightest Mowers in the collection of the Tourist Department; yet it survives. It must indeed be a great walk. Nothing less could bear the burden of advertisement and adulation. THE OTHER: A CONTRAST. In strange contrast stands the other penect walk—like a modest maiden of the bush beside a queen of the mountains. Both are beautiful yet their beaulv is not the same. There is not even 'the remotest resemblance. There you have the long levels of the Southern lake, the snow-capped peaks rooted in the dark-green bush, the high crest of the pass .with the far view, then the waterfalls and the massive grandeur of the Sound. Here it is th,, bush, richer than the Southern forest, and the river winding down a narrow gorge with steep papa Avails dripping with little cascades, a narrow jjutb and—nothing else. No sublime mountains, no wide expanse of water, no distant prospect, except in one place for a few seconds, no sentinelled "arm of the sea—simply the bush. Yet in all the essentials of a penect walk it is well-nigh matchless of its kind, and—it has escaped the' übiquitous tourist. It is a llower blushing unseen in the heart of the bush, far from the madding crowd. The approaches on either side are by coach over forty miles of rough roads. It is completely isolated, unknown to the tourist and undepicted in the 'weekly papers. Yet the roads are creeping into the charmed ground of this gem of the wilderness, and when the highway runs right through from Ongaruhe to Whangamomona it will no longer be a perfect walk.\ Still further from perfection will it be when the railway iollows the road.

Xow, what are these essential qualifications for a perfect walk'! Some are negative. In the first place there must be no road. Roads were not made for the walker—a two-foot track would suffice him—'but for all maimer of vehicles, carls, carriages, coaches, motor-car;, bullock-waggons, and traction-engines. All these are a perpetual menace to the ipiict mind, without which no walk can be ciiioved to perfection. Then there is the dust of traffic in the dry weather, mud in the wet. And a road cuts such a swathe through the bush as to leave a hideous margin of dying, dead, or prostrate trees on either side. A railway is even worse, and this fact detracts much from the licauty of many sections oi the central Main Trunk. A footpath or a bridle truck usuallv does little damage to the bush. A few trees go, of course, but where the cleft in the bush is so narrow the damage is quickly repaired. Kyesorcs in the shape of leafless skeletons, gaunt and grey, are wry few and far between on a bush, track. Add to a narrow, winding path the other essentials of dill', river, Mil, dale, bush, the waterfall, the. wayside glen, and the ever-changing scene, all d you have all the ingredients of a perfect walk. But the road must go. You may have a most enjoyable walk, a perfect drive in a motor-car, yr a coach or other conveyance, but the pleasure of your walk will be marred ic vou take it oil the highway. XOT A NEW TRACK. The long thirty- -mile .bridle - track into, thi'ouglij and out of the Tangar.v kau Gorge is not fresh cut. It has been the regular route from Taranaki to the middle King Country for more than a dozvu years. The cuttings through the papa are overgrown with moss, and the primitive, bridges are being replaced, so old are they and decrepit. In places it is won dangerous, where the truck passes round a papa precipice, fifty feet above the river, on a ledge narrow to start with, ami now reduced to a few inches by slips. I'ur miles and miles, till one loses all idea of time or distance, it follows the banks of the dark river, a tributary of ■ the Wanganui, winding through tunnels of verdant foliage, out again ove r strips oi greensward, and up the bare white face of a dill' -bonneted with overhanging fern and shrubs, then down again and across th c river on a log bridge, past tunnels and spools of dearest water dropping in stages several hundred feet from the to]is of the valley hills, and so on and on, seemingly for ever. TRAMPING. To cover the thirty and mid miles between Maugai'oa and tile first accom-modation-house on the otter side of the wilderness—llallett's. about eight miles short of Whauganioiiiona—it is well to start betimes. He fip before daybreak, get your own breakfast, cut your provisions lor I lie journey in sandwiches—you will get nothing but water on the way—ami take the track through the morning mists. It is perfect. Vou are .all alone in the forest with never a sound but the purling of tlq. peaceful stream half hidden by the pines below, and the occasional notes of" bush birds,

i the eluar call of Hip tul, the screech of \ the kaka, ami tho rustic of the pigeon i-,i its short llights from tree to tree. Fin- horns von will never six' u human being or hear a human voice. Then, perhaps, you "will overtake a couple of "swaggers'' tramping, trudging mechanically, bowed muter their burdens, and sweating with the heat, oblivious of beauty, of anything hut the everlasting problem, where they are going to get thu next ieed, and where to spend tlru night. There are many men on the roads in these times looking for work. They trek from place to place, from the Main Trunk country over to the Stratford side uf the bush, where there is employment on the railways, and north and south, up side roads, in event of a job of hushfelling going a-begging. But times are bad. The writer struck two separate parties, who confessed to being broke, stony broke. Three young fellows, sturdy travellers, had a. tlorin between them, which they hoarded as a last resource. They slept oil top of a haystack at Ilallett's in a night of pouring rain. They were too proud to men- ■ timi their imjieeuiiioiiity, but ill'. HalIctt. seeing them turning into the hay ' at li o'clock in th t , evening, wanned the i truth out, and would have them in for tea. They were up and away long be- ■ iore breakfast. Their quest for work ■ was obviously as genuine as their hideI pendence. It was not so with some of the others. THE MSI'OILER AT WORK.

There is only one spot on the whole way where you can get a long view. It is a few miles out of llangaioa, where the track climbs to the top of a ridge between one valley and another. The mists were still thick, as it was quite early when the writer reached this stage of the journey. Jt was like a frozen sea, with dark-green islands running in ridges away to the horizon. The volcano of Tongariro stood up against tlic sun in the far distance like an inverted bucket. Kuapehu was faintly indicated through a film of elouil. The view was only momentary. With thirty miles to cover before nightfall, there was no time to waste on views. The track dipped into the hush, not to emerge again for twenty-odd miles. That score of miles was simply one long "green thought in a green tiluicle." The road-uiakei's and bridge-builders arc at work opening up this island of bush to civilisation and spoiling the perfect walk. In short stretches the little track lias been expanded itito an ugly muddy road. The co-operative laborers' tents cluster round those centres of industry. In some eases the workmen have wives and families with them. Further on th e dark Tangarakau is bridged by low log structures only a few feet above the water level, and liable in Hood-time to be covered. Substantial bridges arc being built alongside from logs cut and shaped from trees in the bush. Aerial ropeways run from side to side of the gorge. All these are preparations to connect the loose ends of »he roads running into the bush from Mangaroa and Whangamomona. There are about twenty miles of road still to b,i made. The work will take a couple oi years probably, and by that time the trouble of the settlers already in the bush will be over. Freights will come down to reasonable prices, and flour and produce will he cheap, and the piano will • supersede the .phonograph. Settlement ! will be spread on either side of the

flor/re. which itself is reserved by the /merciful providence of the Scenic Commission. The whole district will flourish over the fallen bush, but the perfect walk will be gone for ever.