A TRIP TO THE WAIRARAPA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3991, 17 December 1891, Page 2

A TRIP TO THE WAIRARAPA.

The Impressions of a Visitor. Poetic Description. A Taranaki settler recently visited the Wairarapa. He describes his trip to a local paper as follows; Leaving behinc" the really fine station at the Upper Hutt, we slowly puffed and jolted on our ascent to Kaitoke, a distance of six or sevan miles, winding in and out, now in a deep cutting, with high walls of clay and pebbles on each aide ; now round sharp curves; now on a high embankment, commanding an extensive view of the Hutt Valley below j now through light bush partly felled, partly mouldering to decay. Here and there were signs of an abandoned clearing, choked with ferns and weeds and filled with blackened trunks and logs, looking the very picture of melancholy in dingy mourning over the blighted hopes of despairing settlers. Battling through a short tunnel and crossing a clear mountain stream of that pale gold colour dear to the heart of every lover of the Devonshire " Dart" or Derbyshire Derwent, we arrived at the pretty and rather promising looking settlement of Silverstream, with broad, level, green, and grassy paddocks, on which were contentedly feeding a few fairish cows. It was a veritable oasis in the wilderness of forest ferns, and blasted bush, all round. The seven miles ride from Kaitoke follows, the greater part of that distance, the course of a lovely mountain torrent, now rushing and foaming over boulders, now gliding rapioly and smoothly between thickly wooded and fern clad banks. Above its rose the precipitous slopes of the Kimutaka, to the height of several hundred feet. At the summit we met the up train from the Wairarapa Valley, which had just clambered up the steep ascent of eight miles from Cross Creek, dowti which our train was now to descend. After the hideous Fell engine, specially provided with wheels to grip.the centre rail, had been attached, we commenced, at not much more than a walking pace, this descent from the summit of the Riroutaka to Cross Creek at the foot, on the Wairarapa side. The grade of this indite is in several places, I believe, one foot in fifteen. The railway is here scooped, as it were, out of the solid rock, after the fashion of the celebrated foot road leading down to Leukerbad in the Rhone Valley from the Gemrai Pass. Here it is built upon an embankment with an acclivity nearly perpendicular down to the stream which runs through the rocky gorge below on its way to Lake Wairarapa ; bete it tunnels through a projecting cliff, emerging and crossing an awe inspiring chasm by a kind of viaduct protected on each side by strong barriers, acting as breakwinds against such auotlier terrific blast from the mountain summit which, eleven years ago, hurled engine and carriages headlong down the gorge ; now the line curves and winds through a succession of narrow cuttings, on the bottom of overhanging precipices, which seem as if ready to fall upon and overwhelm the train. As we slowly and cautiously descend, brakes hard down and the Fell engine gripping the centre rail, we at length obtain a glimpse, and soon a more j extended view, of Lake Wairarapa, with its long reach of dirty-brown j water, boundsd on its eastern shores by a broad expanse of undulating plain, intersected by gorges, treeless, waterless, a picture of desolation, j having the bold, bare, rocky hills! to the north-east of Cape Falliser far in the distant back-ground. The scenery is very pleasing. A Bbort t distance to our left, the foot bills of the Tararua Moutains, which bound the entire length on the west, slope downwards to the open plain in a succession ot bold bluffs, separated by richly wooded gorges from each other. On each side of the railway as we approach Featherston, are extensive paddocks, watered with clear, gentle rippling streams, and clothed with magnificent grass, on whose smooth bosom, guiltless of the defilement of gorse or " noxious weeds" are placidly feeding thousands of sheep and lambs, recently shorn hoggets, whose newly washed coats form white spots against the vivid emerald of the meadow; big ewes, panting beneath grand fleeces, or patiently enduring the staggering pulls of the greedy lambs at their maternal udders. Around the paddocks,sheltering them from the rude blasts of Boreas, and the extreme heat in the Wairarapa (Sadeg. in the shade that very day at Masterton) are planted umbrella-like willows, tall Lombardy poplars, and wide-branching cedars. Arrived at Featherston, the first settlement on the railway up the Wairarapa, the fifty miles from the city of Wellington occupying three hours, the change in its whole aspect from that of thirteen years ago was truly marvellous, impossible to describe to do full justice to the industry and culture which have created it. In 1870, a rough, unkept, forlorn hamlet composed of a railway shed, then terminus of the line; an hotel, since burned down, called the Club, and I believs auother iwo or three Btores, and perhaps a dozen shanties ; such was Featheiston wheal fiist visited it. ido not remember seeing a tree other than miserable remains of the

forest on the slopes : not one good house; not one pretty garden. In 1891, behold half a square mile of grass, well-mown, planted with rows ojf flourishing tiees f intersected by broad roads, whose smooth surfape is not surpassed by the entran(?e-drjve • to any Englishman's park. Around this area, really handsome house, two or three almost equal the best at Thorndon, the fashionable quarter of Wellington, each house standing < amid thick shelter trees, with grassy lawns and gay flower beds. Rows of trees likewise protect the settlement ] itself, in a measure, iVetu the ucdesir able fury of the blasfs sweeping down often quite suddenly from the Rimutaka Rtngaaud ihe Tararua Moun* tains above, ' with the violence j almost of' a tornado. The whole j appearapce of Feath'erst'op is indicative alike of taste, culture, and competency, seldom indeed witnessed ( in a country settlement, especially one j but recently recovered from the long and severe depression which succeeded the usual absurd " boom" consequent c upoo ihp first opening of the railway, j I was sliown a' piece of ground, in the immediate neighbourhood of the railway station, apparently under ah ( acre, for which in 1879, eight hundred pounds bad been offered, and refused. The presort prosperity of the district j, may be judged by the eirgumstance j, tha|; recently, in one week, 2 ? 200 jj sheep were'sent to Wellington bj rail from Carterton, a settlement half r way between and Mas- j terton, to order of the Meat Export Company of that City. From Featherston, twenty to thirty trucks j ( loaded with sheep are frequently j despatched in a single day likewise {5 te Wellington. Six years ago (.wo p

thousand sheep were sold near Masterton, at Ibe splendid price of one shilling apiece! This very week at Featherston, twelve hundred wether hoggets, just shorn, were sold at eleven shillings each. Whata marvel it does seem that do wnat they can, our miraculous Ministers of all the talents are evidently not yet able to grapple, satisfactorily from their own peculiar point of view, with all this evidence of that social pent, realised wealth in the shape of broad acres with costly improvements thereon, and these immense flocks of high priced sheep 1 Let us devoutly hope, Sir, they may never be allowed the opportunity.