NEW ZEALAND VIEWS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 479, 27 August 1948, Page 25

NEW ZEALAND VIEWS

Sir,-Your article "The Finest View in New Zealand" and the succeeding letters on the subject have interested me. But no one yet has described what. I claim to be the view that holds top place. If you ascend the mountain marked on survey maps of Queen Charlotte Sound as Tarakawa and known to those living near as Pukeatua--a mountain on the mainland that rises 1885ft. a short distance from the look-out of the Te Awaiti whaling station-you stand in the midst of a grand*panorama. Just below is the Tory Channel entrance, and on a blue day you get blue waves, white-tipped, sporting around darkpinnacled rocks; the blue strait, and be-

yond, in pastel tints, the distant hills of the North Island. Let the eyes wander slowly round in the direction of the sun’s path and a contoured plan of Queen Charlotte Sound is spread before you-Arapawa Island sprawling up the Channel; Long Island, Blumine Island, and Motuara as if floating on the silvered waters of the North Entrance; the bush-clad hills above Ship Cove, and the winding waterways leading on to The Grove. Beyond, you get glimpses of Pelorus Sound-no, more, than glimpses-here are blue lakes, dark hills, more blue lakes and yet more hills. The eyes travel on- there is no obstruction-to the waters of Port Underwood, ultramarine, spread out into Cloudy Bay; and farther on are the Wairau Plains backed by a grand picture of the snowy Kaikouras. Then, just by way of variety, Cape Campbell, cliff-scarred, appears as a long headland, picturesque, jutting out into the endless blue of the Southern ocean, \ And if the month is November you have an enchanting scene at your feet -here and there groups of weatherworn boulders in the midst of great patches of the perfumed Helichrysum,

the crisp.petals glistening like sunkissed snow; and further down, in contrast, the roof canopy of dark-leaved Pukatea. A veritable Pukeatua-hill

of God.

REWA

GLENN

(Wellington).