TO HANMER PLAINS HOT SPRINGS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1856, 21 February 1889, Page 2

TO HANMER PLAINS HOT SPRINGS.

The Hanmer Plains Hot Springs are nearly 200 miles distant from Temuka. They are situated in the Amuri district, in the Province of Nelson, up near the region ot the rabbit and perpetual snow, the home of the weka and the squatter, the hiding place of the terror-striking earthquake. Although this place has forced itself into prominence lately, no less by its booming noises and its turbulent earthquaking than by the curative properties of its springs, still it is a terra incognita to many, and, consequently, I feel that an account of a trip to it will be read with interest. I am not going to enter into a scientific description of it, I know how I felt when starting for the place myself. I wanted information on this, that, and the other thing, and as others starting on the same journey must bo equally anxious to know how (o get there, and all about if, I have decided to give them the result ot my own experience. The Hanmer Hot Springs have a great future before them. They will soon become the sanatorium of the Middle Island, and consequently are invested with more than ordinary interest. Some people have been kept away this year by the earthquake, but people up there only laugh at if. The fact Is, everything about the earthquake is forgotten, and the prevailing opinion is that too much has been made of it altogether. ' But I must to ray .journey. 1 left Petnuka by the 3,49 express, reached Christchurch at five minutes to 8 o'clock, md put up at the TERMINUS HOTEL, . if which Mr Bred. Storey, erstwhile of Pomuka, is the proprietor. It is one of ;he largest and best hotels in Christchurch; t is excellently managed by Mr and Mrs Storey, and to the traveller to Hanmer Plains Hot Springs it has many advantages : First, it is a brick building, md one runs no risk of fire in it. Second, t is within two chains of the railway itation, and when one has to start again it 7.30 a.m. by the train he finds it vary onvenient to be so near at hand, He iced not leave the hotel until the first bell ings, aad has do cab fare to pay. And, bird, better accommodation cannot be ot in Christchurch, while the charges are oasonable. Visitors to Hanmer Plains—nd indeed visitors to Christchurch geneally—would, therefore, fiad this hotel lie best place to stay at, apart altogether rom the fact that Mr and Mrs Storey are ’ lost anxious to make Temuka people who iflit them comfortable, and that one feels i t homo there. 1 THE NORTHERN LINE. 1 The Hanmer Plains are close on 100 r iles from Christchurch, and the train j kes the traveller nearly seventy miles of c e journey. It starts from tbo Christ- t mrch Railway Station, comes along the c uth trunk line as far as Addington, then o finches off through Riccarton, Kaiapoi, v ingiora, Weka Pass, and on to Cul- h rden, the terminus of the line. The a urney in made through very interesting u untry —certainly the finest I have seen n Now Zealand—and wears for the most h

part the nearest approach to an Old Country aspect of any place I have seen. It interested me so much that i determined on giving a brief sketch of it. All along the line to withm a few miles of the WekaPass the land is subdivided into decent-sized paddocks. Farm-houses peep out of clumps of trees everywhere, and apparently it is a thickly populated district. One of its characteristics is that little groves of trees are to bo met with everywhere. Trees shut 5o the railway and obscure the vision in many places, while in a moment’s time a lovely vista of lea and cornfield, here and there dotted with little groves of trees, meets your admiring gaze. Trees are about the houses, trees are in the fences, trees are near you, trees are as far away as you can see, making tho scene beautiful ; yet withal it has a straggling appearance, and lacks that tidiness and that evenness which one has been accustomed to meet with in the Old Country. The land is evidently as fruitful as it is beautiful to behold. The crops all along to Rangiora, on which reapers and binders were operating, were very heavy, but beyond that they could not ha said to be above the average. In the neighborhood of Christchurch a good deal of land, is under potatoes—not little patches, but broad acres—and splendidly they looked. Fifty acres about here would, I think, be a fine estate.

There are a few sand hilla on the way a short distance Christchurch, which brought to my mind the west coast of the JSTorth Island, and a story connected therewith. For miles away from the beach there mountains of sand are to be seen, and it is so fine that it is driven by the wind like snow, with the result that the traveller runs the risk of falling into pitfalls made by it, much after the fashion of a snow-drift. The story goes that on one occasion a gentleman was riding along one of these sand-drifts, when he noticed a hat lying on the sand. He alighted to pick up the hat, but to his surprise he found a man’s head in it. He proceeded to assist the man out of his sandy grave, when the man exclaimed, “ Hold on until I get my feet out of the stirrups, my horse is underneath me.”

The Belfast Freezing Works acd large wool works are near the railway. The freezing works building is an imposing structure. A dirty slimy tidal river, which appears beautifully adapted for ln breeding eels and miasma, is passed over, er and shortly afterwards the guard sings out KAIAPOI. 1 This town is hidden away by the foliage 2 of willows and other trees, or else there is 3 very little of it. I have been educated to h. regard Kaiapoi, as a very important place, and seeing so little of it I was disappointed muchly. I got a glimpse of one street, 1 which looked very “ scraggy,” and just 2 in keeping with the railway station, which jj is one of the meanest on the line. There is an irregularity about the trees there, J and a “ acragginess ” about everything 93 that gives the impression that its inhabitants are rather untidy. Kaiapoi is a great place for local industries, and, taken in connection with its dirty river, I should recommend it to go in for the manufacture * of chloride of lime, as it seems to be sadly g wanted there for sanitary reasons. g RANSIORA g shows itself to the full gaze of the traveller i 8 by train, arid a good-sized substantial 5 town it looks. It is situated in the heart S q of a splendid grain-growing district, and a commands and extensive view of very fine 3 country. Some of its buildings are sub--5 stantial and large, but all of them appeared to be built of wood, and to have " a dusty look about them that indicated 5. that the whole town sadly wanted a coat of paint. >a SSEToK i. is a village which has a few good buildt. ings, including a newly-erected skating a rink, and an anecdote worth relating. Here I met an old friend—Mr Hammond, r, once Inspector of Schools in South Cang terbury. In the course of conversation I s asked him a question about a peculiar--0 looking private residence within n few it yards of the station. “That,” he paid, i- “ was once a branch of the Bank of New a Zealand, but a quarrel arose between the .( principal storekeeper and the bank, with e the result that the bank went under, and a now it is a private residence.” The bell 1 rang, and I had to take my seat with 0 reluctance, «a I was very anxious to call a on the principal storekeeper and ask him a to “ wine” with me. t AMBERLKY t which once was, and ought to bo still, the a terminus of the line, is another prosperous . looking village, and seemed to me to be t the happy hunting ground of butchers, 1 dealers, and stockmen generally. When 5 1 passed there on ray opward journey i many men whom I could swear belonged , to these classes congregated on the station. r On my return they were in larger numbers there, and their cattle wore browsing ; along the road near the line. They must

. enjoy a perpetual fair day at Amberley. I MOORE, OF GLENMARK. Until after passing Amberley 1 ha ; been travelling unknown and unknowing but about here I happened while passin to tread on the favorite corn of a Christ church gentleman, and of course I mad my apologies; This incident introduce us, and henceforth he was my guide philosopher and friend. The first item o information he gave me was to direct m; attention to the fact that we were enter rug the dominion of the great wool-king Moore of Glenmark. We. went on, th land belonged to. Moore of Glenmark; wi went on through the Weka Pass, it be longed to Moore, of Glenmark; wedroppec down into a beautiful valley, it was Moore of Glenmark’a; we rushed or between rolling downs, they belonged t( Moore ; we got into an open plain, it was Moore of Glenmark s; passed by thret or four miles of mangel-wurzels, they were Moore of Qlemnark’s; by some cornfields, they were Moore of Glemnarb's; and on and on we went still within the boundaries of this great plutocrat’s territorial possessions till the land became very poor up closer toHurunui, and there was planted a village settlement. Moore of Glenmark’s freehold estate covers about 20 miles of country, and is splendid land, most of it being plougbable, but the village settlement has been placed on very poor land. This is characteristic. The contrast between the village settlers and their neighbors Is calculated to breed discontent amongst the former class. Moore, of Glenmark, is rapidly moving on towards his 80th year. His heir is an heiress, who is about half his own age, and still heirless, she so far having been unable to accumulate a husband. I would not object to being Moore of Qlenraark’s heir. That would knock some of the,

radical notions out of me in all probability. Moore, of Qlenraark, has, I am told, signified his determination to live to the age of 90 at least, and longer if ho can manage it, and his object in doing so is to spite the communistic rascals who clamor 1 for cutting up large estates, THE WEKA PA?S. Frequently on the journey I had been told 1 would be greatly interested in the Weka Pass scenery. To a geologist doubtless the different atratas of clay and rocks, which are exposed to view in the cuttings, would be interesting, but as I could not distinguish the silunan from the pleocene or tertiary strata, I found very little there to admire. That little consisted in a strata or layer of oyster shells which were exposed some ten or fifteen feet deep in one of the cuttings. They were large and well defined, as if placed there yesterday, and evidently belonged to the Stewart Island family. The waves of the Southern Ocean once played leap frog hereabouts when these oysters lived and moved and had their being. About 900 years ago Omar El Aalem was prosecv*ted and banished from his country, for saying that the sea was receding and leaving the land dry. What would his persecutors have said had they seen the oyster shells of the Weka Pass ? This is the only thing of interest in the pass. Thera is nothing in looking at hills covered with yellowish grass, the offspring perhaps of a burned tussock ; there is nothing in looking over a steep embankment into an almost dry rivulet confined within very narrow limits by rocky walls; nor in passing through cuttings made through a fragmentary sort of a rock, that shows but the one strata ; nor in looking at huge rocks, some of which lay upon the ground as if they fell down from the sky there. No doubt they are little pebbles which a giant volcano flung playfully up out of the bowels ot the earth some time or another. This is all that there is to see, excepting a deserted accommodation house, whose trade has been ruined by the railway. You, however, get plenty of time to see all that is to be seen, as the grade is steep, and the train crawls but slowly along. THE WAIKABI PLAINS, j A happier, a brighter, and a more | interesting scene presents itself on the other side, where an extensive plain set in and ploughable rolling downs ; stretch its full length for miles before your gaze. Here the railway has again destroyed private property. Half-a-mile or so away from the original stage hotel, which, from Its pretentious appearance did, 1 should say, good business in the old coaching days, the railway station has been built. A good-sized hotel, a store, and several other buildings and houses have sprung up in its vicinity, and the original village appears almost deserted. All the country round so far as the eye can reach belongs to Moore, of Glenmark, and splendid land it is. Keepers and binders were cutting down splendid crops m this valley, and at its upper eud the residence of Mr H. P. Lance, Member for the district, appeared in view. He has another residence about ten ortwelvemilesfurlher in inthocountry, and this I was told was situated in a more central position on his run. Holdings up that way are measured by the mile, not by the acre. THE HUBBNUI. The bed of the Hurunui extends over miles, and is covered with manuka scrub. The land is practically useless, and it is in the corner of it the village settlement is located by a paternal Government. In crossing the Hurunui we bid good bye to Canterbury and enter the province of Nelson, and most of the land thence to Culverden is excellent. The crops were very good—and there was a good deal of them—and, with the exception that it is almost devoid of poplnacion, the country there looked very fine. 1 should like to know how the line from Culverden to Amberley pays. Moore of Glenraark owns the land for about 20 miles of the journey, and the remainder of it is owned by about half-a-dozen other persons. For the benefit of these the line has been made, and now they are the first to cry out against the railway management, excessive taxation, etc. I would not be in the least surprised if 1 were told that the making of this line put a quarter of a million of money into the pockets of the few people in this district.

la my next contribution I shall describe the journey to the springs, and give all information concerning them. I thought I would have been able to do the journey in one day, but remember that it takes two days’ travelling, J.M.T.