AUSTRALIAN TRAVELS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 97, 26 April 1930, Page 10 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIAN TRAVELS.

ACROSS THE BLUE ! MOUNTAINS.

NEW ZEAEANDER'S LONG j BICYCLE RIDE,.

INTERESTING SCENES AND PEOPLE. (By ERNEST L. EYRE.) The best advertisements that our comparatively small, isolated, but incomparably beautiful Ao-tea-roa ever received in wide, but generally dry and haggard Australia were the amazingly intrepid flights of the later, in my opinion, unjustly maligned aviators, Ivingsford Smith and Ulm, across the stormy Tasman Sea, and the appallingly devastating, prolonged Murchison earthquakes. During and after these notable events many Australians —from . Sydney to Broken Hill, Adelaide to Brisbane— closely questioned me about our "dangerous shaky isles" which (save for/occasional Press references to, and photographs of, our well-watered farms, glorious scenery, and weird thermal activity) appeared to be entirely unknown to them. In extenuation, however, of their apparent ignorance, we must remember that New Zealand is dwarfed into insignificance by the IslandContinent —29 times our size—and; after all, what do we know of Iceland: Some inquirers imagined "Pig Island"— as they called it—to contain mostly Maoris, of whom they had heard laudatory reports. "A magnificent native race, that we greatly admire," they said; praise indeed from quarters where coloured people are usually anathematised. "Shure, your country, from what yez say, must be loike Auld Erin: green an' no snakes (St. Patrick 'shooed' ,'ein all into ther Irish Sea) an' er foine place for livin' in," quoth a tiaiber-getting Dublin immigrant, as we rested, one hot noon, on a Blue Mountains spur, overlooking Penrith town, and the circumscribed, but picturesque, historic, tree-shaded and fertile Emu Plains, 30 miles west of Sydney. Pat placed a billy on a gumtwig fire, and pointed to the distant iron bridge across the broad, silver Nepean (Upper Hawkesbury) River. "Yon's where Blaxland, Lawson an' Wentworth sfct forth, in 1813, to find er pass through these mountains, but o' course there was no bridge thin —only ticket-o'-leave ferrymen, with punts." "The wonder is," I venture, gazing with awe at surrounding precipitous, eerie gorges, where, on stone arches, the railway ran, "that success attended their quest. Often, risking death, they crawled up razor-like ridges on hands and knees. Wentworth, then a youth, afterwards went to Cambridge, later becoming Australia's favourite poet, her first great statesman and journalist, the father of Responsible Government here, and founder of Sydney's splendid University, where his statue stands. But what numbers of men are on the track, presumably looking for work!" I added, indicating a line pf well-dressed, voluble, amateur "swaggies" laboriously climbing, with varied, unnecessary, wronglystrap'ped heavy luggage (one man "humped" two portmanteaux) on their shoulders, the steep, tortuous bitumen road beneath us. I knew they were novices, because the professional sundowners I had seen usually trudged silently along with downcast or averted eyes, as if ashamed of their frequently, ragged condition, or afraid of the police. Their swags, too, were rolled and carried in a space-and-weight-saving way. Continued yours tiuly: "Wherever I cycle in New South Wales travellers are tramping out from town."

"Aye, yes spake true indade. Bad times is tlier cause, take me'wor-r-d, an'" (with the simple, pathetic faith of Aussie workmen in their Labour idols) "they won't improve till Jack Lang an' his mates gits into power agin. But wa'd yes loike er cup o' tay ?" A Bush Bohemia. - Four miles up the Blue Mountains — so called becaule, when viewed from afar on cold, clear winter days, their colour is markedly indigo—a small stone obelisk stood on the site of the explorers' initial camp. Around a bend slumbered the pretty village of Glenbrook, where, amongst a coterie of artistic folk, dwelt Zora Cross, famous poetess, reviewer and author of the novel, "Daughters of the Seven Mile"; Mick Paul, black and white artist, typical jovial Bohemian; his wife, Dorothy Elle'smere, gifted magazine illustrator; Hilary Lofting and Margaret, Fane, collaborators in short stories; and Mrs. Sandrys, whose book, "The Beehive," received excellent reviews. For some time previous to his death, two years ago, David Mclvee Wright—probably the Antipodes' most brilliant man of letters, and, before he joined the Sydney "Bulletin" staff, a Nelson (New Zealand) parson —also lived there. Strangely enough, ho received little posthumous notice in Australia's Press. "'Tis a fallacy that people of constructive ability can do their best work when struggling half-starved, like poor Oliver Goldsmith and Doctor Johnson, amid city slums," remarked a Bohemian to me a", we inspected vivid flower beds on the local railway station. (Prizes for the best-kept stations in New South Wales are annually presented by the Government, and 'this custom New Zealand might advantageously emulate.) "We strive to live well —nourished bodies induce active brains," my lady friend resumed, "and we adopt the successful American plan of wooing Art afar from commercialism's distracting roar. But don't you think, Mr. Eyre" —she smiled inimitably and pointed to vari-colourc-d bungalows amid golden wattles —"that we have chosen a beautiful liaven of inspiration and rest?" "Undoubtedly,' responded I, "and soon —now that I .find at middle-age my early enthusiasms waning and limbs losing the resiliency which has enabled me to pedal my bike for sixty thousand miles in Maoriland and Australia, selling my poems—l'll settle definitely in sunny Glenbrook, allow your eucalyp'us-laden atmosphere to eliminate the last of my lifelong asthma, and gracefully grow old!" At Springwood, further up the mountains, Norman Lindsay, worhl-renowned. but much criticised cartoonist, etcher and brush artist, had his studio; and higher yet I visited the grave of the rugged, beloved Richard Seddon, of New South Wales, Sir Henry Parkes, founder of the splendid education system, which provides certain school books free, anothvr advantage over Maoriland, of the Mother State. Katoomba, Leura, Blackheath, Etc. The wonders of the busy Blue Mountains' tourist resorts, over 3000 feet above the sea, were manifold. Down deep, sheer cliffs and ferny slopes leapt

tumultuously—to mention a few—the lovely Katoomba, Lodore, Minnihaha, Sylvia, Linda, Weeping Rock, Victoria, and Fairy Dell Falls, all, however, replicas of New Zealand's greater matvels. I passed, at some of«the cascadcs, between the curtain of rainbow-coloured foam and the mossy walls behind.' The immense and fascinating Jenolan Caves, Nature's amazing handiwork (I believe even larger a,nd better ones have lately been discovered in Tasmania) filled me with emotion. I realised man's pigmy power as I gazed at the cloudfilled Grose Valley, fairy-like Dot's Glen, Leura Gap. majestic Federal Pass, and other /vast, awe-inspiring, bushclad, precipitous gorges, whose formation, per running water's agency, commenced long before our monkey ancestor stepped gingerly down from his Old World tree. No adequate description can be conveyed of them. Earth's immeasurable antiquity was plainly evident there! Varied birds, especially brilliantly-coloured parrots, flew in flocks around the electrically-lit extensive guest houses of the up-to-date tourist towns, native bears (alas! growing scarce in Australia) peered curiously at me, and 'possums, silhouetted against the full moon, played hide-and-seek ou giant gums. My interest in the Blue Mountains, even "Bohemian" Glenbrook, suddenly evaporated, however, when a venomous spider, at Leura, bit my left hand. Suffering agonising pain, I va? "doctored" in time, but I never again, in common with most Maorilanders, felt at ease in Australia's reptile-ridden bush. Where death lurked underfoot novel scenes lost their charm, and I was glad when I rode, after passing through Lith gow —a mining and manufacturing : town, situated 95 miles from the ocean—into beautiful Bathurst, on cultivated, farreaching western plains.

At Mudgee. Later I wandered to Mudgee, an old goldlields' town, bathed in sunset's evanescent lire, and, longing for Whangarei Heads, with scows making south, lounged by the Cudgegong Rivir. The local so-called "crank" joined me, and abruptly began: "Stranger, once a tall, dark, burning-eyed, partly-deaf youth, born at Grenfell, lived hereabouts. Non-understanding persons nicknamed him 'Ratty,' because he recited poems of his own to trees. Brilliant original people have been maligned, in this way, in every age. A Norwegian sailor's son, lie learned the carriage-painting trade. His mother was a clever literary woman, and (unlike parents who stifle their children's genius because 'it doesn't pay') encouraged him to write. His poems and prose in the Sydney 'Bulletin' won instantaneous popularity. "Wanderlust gripped the writer, who 'humped bluey' for a time in our,, bush, where lie did odd jobs and studied mankind. Stranger" —and the queer person lit his pipe: "this man, although often unassisted himself, wrote to help the underdog. He possessed that rarity, a human heart. A seer also, he realised that Australia required —-for safety—a large, contented population, and he had no time for cheap jibes of 'Jackeroo' or 'Pom' directed at hard-working English immigrants. He called our pioneers 'England's best and bravest.' An advocate of better life conditions, and no class distinctions, he became a Tory target. He went to Wellington, New Zealand, and was allowed to sleep in parks. To England he sailed, but Australian literature was not understood there. Broken-spirited, he returned home, and attempted to commit suicide. Unhappy'-in his domestic life, and living longer in Sydney than was good for his one unfortunate failing, he nevertheless was Australia's best friend. He* had no literary prototypes—save perhaps Eliza Cook —and his tales of bush and town induced smiles and tears. Mudgee, and its surroundings, he immortalised. The State gave him a paltry pension, but money, like most geniuses, he scorned, and died' poor. His desire —a jolly public funeral, with a brass band —was fulfilled. There's an annual pilgrimage in Sydney to his grave. Stranger, his name—which will live, because of his humanity, while Australia turns from West to East was — "Henry Laws on," I said.