THE FAR SOUTH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 892, 7 September 1956, Page 10

THE FAR SOUTH

(GAZING from the windows of our workplace these first bright days of early spring, we begin to think of summer soon upon us and holiday time once more. A few short months to go, and a lot of planning to be done and decisions to be made. Experience has shown that holidays do need some planning. Surely the ideal (we think) is to put Mother in the car, and with Jack and Jill safely tucked in the back seat, point the car away and vanish into the blue? The ideal, perhaps, but before we can approach it there are questions to be asked and answered, What lies in the blue? What are the roads like? Where can one stay? Where are we going, any-way-and why? In a series of eight articles, one every fortnight, The Listener will try to answer some of these questions. We cannot hope to cover the approximate 104,000 square miles of country that is New Zealand, or for that matter say much about the places that are mentioned; but we will try to suggest alternatives to the commonplaces of tourist travel where we can-something about the roads, motels, motor camps and other prospects of accommodation. After all, do we not all repress during the year the desire to tell people where to go? Not suffering from this repression, The Listener’s first suggestion is the Far South-Otago, Southland, Stewart Island. Rakiura-"Isle of the Setting Sun"or Stewart Island as it is prosaically known today, is two hours by sea from Bluff, or half an hour from Invercargill by air. At Oban, the main township, in Half-Moon Bay, there are several guest houses, and from the Bay tracks radiate to many places of interest. Launches are available for hire or for scheduled cruises, and camping is popular in this, one of the country’s leading summer resorts. Stewart Island, in Maori legend the anchor of Maui’s canoe, was visited by Frank Bullen (Cruise of the Cacha-. Jot) last century in the whaling ship Splendid. In those days Port William and Port Pegasus were thriving whaling ports-now the island’s picturesque past finds echoes in its place names: Port Ad-~ venture, Cannibal Bay, Fright Cove, Glory Bay-and another, anticipating the popular song-Chew-Tobacco Bay.

From Bluff we go seventeen miles northwards to Invercargill, our southern starting point for the lakes. Invercargill is notable in many ways, but especially notable to the less-privileged for its broad streets and licensing trust. Keen fishermen can turn off here and go west through the popular marine resort of Riverton to Tuatapere and the lower reaches of the Waiau. It is just over a hundred miles from Invercargill to Te Anau, our route taking us through Lumsden and Mossburn. If we turn off at Flaxy Creek Junction and go by way of Lake Manapouri we add another fourteen miles to this total. But. it would be well worth it. Malcolm Ross, Pioneer explorer and mountaineer, held that Manapouri is the most beautiful of all New Zealand lakes, and this view is echoed by many travellers when they see the lake with its green islands spotted red with the summer flowering of the rata. There is a hotel, a lodge, and camping facilities are available on the left bank of the Waiau. A launch makes twice-daily trips on the lake, At Te Anau there is the Government Tourist hotel, a guesthouse, and camping facilities. Launches and amphibious aircraft are available for trips in the area. Te Anau is the starting point for the Milford Track-"the finest walk in the world"-as the English Spectator titled Miss B. E. Baughan’s early account of a walk over the track, For the fishermen, the lake holds . Atlantic salmon, brown and rainbow trout, but the Te Anau fish have a reputation for shrewdness, From Lumsden to Te Anau we have been on gravel roads, and going to Milford the surface is the same. The occasional visitor who criticises these mountain highways could well spare a thought to the difficulties of having a road at all, and think sometimes of the men who worked for eight or ten shillings a day to build it, and of those who died by flood or avalanche. At various places on the road’ to Milford are camping sites, and at the Sound itself the new Government Tourist hotel and the A.A, hostel. The rainfall for this area is one of the highest in the Dominion, and many visitors are fated to be disappointed in the weather they encounter. However, bad weather has its consolation, for during and after

the rain one can see things unseen in fine’ weather; wet granite mirroring the sun; the fiord walls hung with a thousand waterfalls; and the subtle colours of the bush, lighting in the softness of the washed air. We understand that it is only the female sandfly that bites; but chivalry here would be too painful a thing. The traveller is therefore warned to come prepared to repel boarders. ‘a Back once more at Lumsden, we can head now to the lakes of Central Otago. The route to Queenstown takes us through some of New Zealand’s greatest barley growing country. The road is still gravel, and. as on all gravel roads in hot, dry weather, dust can be a problem. The road above Lake Wakatipu, especially over the Devil’s Staircase, provides some very exacting driving. Much has been written about Queenstown and the Lake, and one could spend many weeks profitably touring around the area. Many fortunes were won here in the gold rush days, but little is left to remind the traveller of the many thousands of miners who worked, drank, and gambled, except the ghost towns and the scarred banks of the Shotover. The beech forest at Paradise, in from Glenorchy at the northern end of Wakatipu, ig among the most beautiful in New Zealand. Though the area was named Paradise after the ducks that are seen in great numbers here, the nether regions are well represented in the near-by mountains-Nox, Chaos, Cerberus, and Pluto (the latter was represented to us when we were there last as the great Greek philosopher!) From Queenstown we can head off to Wanaka over the Crown Range, or to Cromwell via the Kawarau Gorge. The summit of the Crown Range is the highest point on any road in New Zealand (3676 feet), The road is narrow and nervous drivers should anticipate the daily service-car, Thirty years ago, writing on travel in New Zealand, James Cowan commented that "some day, the Haast Pass route to Wanaka may make a famous motoring track." Some time in 1957-we hope -this prophecy will come true with the opening of the Haast Pass Road. A round trip then will be possible around the buttress of the Alps. Cromwell, at the confluence of the Kawarau and Clutha Rivers, could be considered one of the most dramatically sited towns in New Zealand. There are many such places in Central, though, where the wide skies and the high rugged hills-what Thomas _ Bracken called "the big brown noble mountains of Otago"-were a fitting setting to the old days of gold. : Continuing south-eastward from Cromwell we come to Clyde, known originally as "The Dunstan." This quiet town, it, is instructive to remember, once Had a population of over/ four thousand. Now it is more like four hundred. Clyde and Cromwell both have well-appointed borough camps, while’ Alexandra, five miles on from Clyde, has a motor camp that can accommodate about 2000. Our last stop will be Roxburgh. Six miles from the township is the Roxburgh Hydro, which came into operation last July. So far-we have looked at nature; here we see what men can achieve changing nature by damming the’ strongest river in New Zealand,