MILFORD S SINDBAD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 76, 30 March 1928, Page 6

MILFORD S SINDBAD.

. Ti . ,e n ews that a "first-class hostel" to provide foi sixty guests is to be erected by the GovernTCiZV f tr If d c . ot * age of the Motherlands at the head of Milford Sound brings up memories of days spent m those parts with that rou<>h-and-!7l,r mor '.' he ** Donald Sutherland, and tuies. He was a type that fitted the fiordland country, big, gruff Sutherland, one-time sailor rad d,^ b tT m h e T U \r° Speetor and explorer He an thft T the av frage tourist, least of askintr T*' h ° Spcnt ha,f th « time a W he said, and the other half finding fault with the accommodation SomeTlln trailers would wait mai yToui s at Sandfly P oin t for Sutherland's motor launch to appear; the signal that they were Si w usually g,ven by the guide exploding a ph, c of djnamite. The dour old Scot used to say that a thl 1a \ a amoM j? the sandflies would teach the new chums patience and fortitude But a Tz:r^ B oZ en^ and H tr wen ° id passed on over the range before the promised 10 \Iahv'« ® ystem br f ks Gilford's solitude. Many a year ago two of us spent a trulv w-M a „ ilf°, n w,th Sutherland exploring tha't wild gully that runs from near the head of the sound up behind Mitre Peak. It was a fearful wUh J 1 " 5 ® rocks P' led in va «t confusion ZS A- c aycrns half-hidden br centuries' L i v «B e^ atTOn - It was in a twilight gloom arched over by forest trees and ferns. SuthprN^' that t i ?t vi" he first explored it he had a belief that diamonds were to be found there anH Vfo named it Sindbad Gully after the valley of the SSSSftfc «-i iCh : he i ad rea d in the 'Itory If Sirtdbad the Sailor in the "Arabian Nights" He never found any jewel stones there, but he stoutlv maintained it was likely country." Another dav we scrambled, up thrdugh the bush above Anitl Bay, down the sound towards the mouth, where there was a reef of tangiwai greenstone. That was the nearest approach to mineral treasures of commercial value that has yet been unearthed in the sound, though Sutherland spent many a month in the seventies prospecting for gold,'and even had some men once putting in a drive on a supffwSJftST' * mtle te

Donald Sutherland had quite an armourv of weapons in his comfortable old cottage, and the i j!L *?° 8e J£Vl 8 ' ranging from an old muzzleloader and a Sihder carbine to the latest Winchester rifle, set _hini off those nights on the old fighting trail, when he Carried his Terry carbine aridJiiß tomahawk on the warpath against the Haubaus in the late 'sixties. He had been in about forty jngagfments and skirmishes in his time, from 1863 to 1870. By the middle 'seventies he had all he wanted of adventure, and so he settled all alone at Milford Sound to enjoy a quiet life. Moat people would call it anything but enjoyment, set down there with hife don- and gun and tent and a few stores, in that place of immense overpowering granite walls, a terrific solitude. But Donald Sutherland was no ordinary man. He was the stuff of which great lone-handed explorers aremad* . —