SUNNY SKIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 191, 15 August 1933, Page 9

SUNNY SKIES

NEW ZEALAND'S FAR NORTH.

SIR H. BEAUCHAMP IMPRESSED. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, thie day. Returning to Wellington after a visit to the Far North was for Sir Harold Beauchamp "like stepping from a warm bath to a cold shower." He was impressed by the mildness and the dryness of the air in the district between Russell and Rawene. He believes that this area will become the Riviera of New Zealand. "As people advance in years," said Sir Harold in an interview, "it is only natural that they should wish to avoid the rigours of winter, and to do that they must go North. I suppose the temperature is at least ten degrees warmer in Auckland City than in Wellington during the winter, and presumably it is a little warmer still at the Bay of Islands. Russell is a onehorse town at present, but it is pretty sure to develop as people begin to realiee that mild air and plenty of sunshine are available there even in mid-winter.

"When I was at Kaikohe I met a schoolmaster from Rawene on the west coast of the district, who was most enthusiastic over the curative properties of the air, and declared that it was most effective in eases of phthisis. 'I am not- particularly interested in you as Sir Harold Beauchahip,' said this schoolmaster, with disarming frankness, Taut I am interested in you as the father of Katlierine Mansfield. Why, oh why, was she never sent here instead of to the South of France? lam eure she would have had a better chance of living if it could have been managed. , " Sir Harold said he quoted the incident only as illustrating the almost sublime faith the people of the Far North had in the climate of the region. "AH I know," he remarked, "is that returning to Wellington from the Far North, was like stepping from a warm bath to a cold shower."