SETTLERS AND TOURISTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 147, 23 June 1934, Page 8

SETTLERS AND TOURISTS.

The Government's decision to spend a quarter of a million or so on the motoring highway from Te Anau to Milford Sound implies that there is plenty of money in the ■States treasure chest for luxury roads. We cannot be so very hard up, after all. That being so, there arc likely to be requests from many other quarters for improved means of communication. Gisborne is alreadv asking why it cannot have its railway, which would cost less and be more useful than any tourist road. The next complaint we may expect to hear will probably be from the settlers of South Westland, who for many years have been begging the, Government for roads and bridges. The construction of a road for wheel traffic between Westland and Otago by way of the Haast Pass is one of those works that should have precedence of any purely pleasuretouring road,

J 'lhe special fixture of this route, which is only a horse track at present, is that it will combine both purposes, a traffic outlet for the settlers of South Westland and an uncommonly attractive road for tourists. Compared with the new route from Lake Te Anau to Milford, with its long tunnel that has to be made through a granite mountain, the road making between the West Coast and the head of Lake Wanaka would not be very costly; the chief expense would be the numerous bridges over the snow-fed rivers. At present motors cannot go much further south than the Fox Glacier valley; from there to Wanaka there is a horse-route stretch' of about 120 miles, with only one bridge, and very few travellers care to face a riding journey of that distance through rough country. The making of a motor road into Otago by this route over tlie Haast Pa/ss, which is the lowest saddle in the central alpine chain, would give a very great impetus to holiday travel along the West Coast, for tourists would not need to return from the glaciers by the same route, as at present, but would be able to continue the journey into tlie Otago lakes country.

Then South Westland is not an uninhabited place of magnificent desolation. There are settlers all the way down the coast from the glacier district to the Haast month, Okuru and Jackson's Bay; there are cattle stations and flax mills. These people live very isolated lives; they arc entitled to something better in' the way of- communication with tlie outside world. Both classes would benefit by a road, settlers socking a market and tourists exploring a new and very beautiful country. Writing as one who knows both regions, Fiordland and the Haast Pass region, I consider the Government should have given preference to the South Westlaiulers' needs. —J.C.