TRIP TO THE NEW WONDERLAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8359, 16 February 1907, Page 6

TRIP TO THE NEW WONDERLAND.

FtfANZ JOSEF AND FOX' GLACIERS. Last the year the Government of New Zealand commissioned Mr E. W. Christmas to paint several scenes of the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers. Referring,to this beautiful but littleknown Wonderland of the West Coast of the South Island, Mr Christmas remarked, in conversation with a Wairarapa Age reporter: "The three days' trip by coach from Hokitika to Franz Josef is unique, I think. The whole three days is a constant changing scene. There is not a mile of the whole trip that is not paintable, while each subject could be repeated half a dozen times for the beautiful, light and cloud and colour effects, as each change makes a new picture. There is no monotony. You just plunge into stupendous magnificence from the start, through furious rivers, over bridges (rickety and otherwise),- over mountains, down valleys, through dense and magnificent ~ bush, indescribable in its various shades and character. Its massed wealth and undergrowth of a thousand and one different shrubs, and in many parts the hillside is clothed in a scarlet robe of rata, while towering above the pearly white snow peaks just glisten in the sunlight in their mighty magnificence &nd splendour. After three days of-this scenery, with comfortable accommodation houses at convenient stages, Waiho Gorge is reached at the foot of these mighty ice-clad mountains. Batson'saccommodation house- a new hotel is about to be built here—is comfortable, though lonely and Bohemian, and the tariff is reasonable. Four miles walk above the course of the Waiho River, on one side, there is wondrous dense bush teeming with wild pigeons and other birds, and on the other side the great nose of Franz Josef glacier is reached —a wondrous sight to behold. This great stretch of ice, , eleven miles long and about a mile wide, comes down be* tween mighty snow and ice-covered mountain; and below the snow-line a blaze of scarlet rata bloom reaches within a stone's throw of the ice, which at the moraine boundary is only six hundred feet above sea level. Its easily accessible altitude, and its wonderful surrounding, makes it the most beautiful glacier in the world. When the great ice-bed is reached, after a climb by the aid of heavy spiked boots and an ice-axe, only then is the greatness and awe inspiring magnificence realized. Great blue —royal transparent blue —crevasses gape, some two hundred feet deep, while towering above as many feet, the mighty ice peaks stand out like cathedral spires, shimmering in the sunlight, and beneath all this the gurgling waters of the rivers can be distinctly heard, as they flow on down the river Waiho to the sea. All this magnificence can be seen and realised —as far as poor human nature can realize—for a return ticket from Wellington, for a paltry £l2 about, and yet people in New Zealand will leave a dirty, hot city for another a little more dirty and hot, to spend a holiday, while the Waiho is yearning to give them more pleasure in three weeks than they have ever realised in their sordid lives."