THE HOLIDAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 70, 23 March 1935, Page 7

THE HOLIDAY.

WIND AND WATER. MAD MARCH DAYS. FAN TAN AND MAH JONGG. (By P.M.) Anyone who takes a summer holiday in mid-March must not mind the weather; it is all very well for the toiling millions who have to take their holidays at certain times to be thankful for a few days' sunshine, but when one selects the middle of March as the ideal time to spend one's vacation, then one can justly be disappointed * in the results. / When the blazing sun of a transplanted Indian summer gives way for just one brief week to a series of downpours and storms that cause floods and washouts galore, and even ruin fine, sandy beaches, then one has certainly delayed too long in saying farewell to the last rose of summer. Usually reserved for May and decidedly before its time at Easter, this wintry weather dubs itself as out of season.

Two days of clear sky and warm sun give way to a lowering and even scowling atmosphere on the third. The fourth, after a brilliant early morning, fully bore out the promise of the scowls, its ill-humour being continued into another day of threatening, humid clouds. There was a little sun on the sixth, and, thinking the storm was all over, two holidaymakers left for "the beach." Yes, they are "baching"—but not the first nigh*. Tsack t» the great city they must return for the key, left inadvertently on the dressing-table. Off they went next day, on a much slower (and more expensive) boat, and enjoyed one glorious afternoon's rest in anticipation of the bathing, bush-exploring, hill-tramping and rock-wandering to come amid the innumerable hills and

valleys, coves and cliffs of Northern Waiheke. That evening, however, came rain, and with it a mounting wind. There followed five days of almost unbroken deluge, driven by a howling nor'easter, and leaving the aforesaid hills and valleys impassable slopes of yellow mud and rushing dirty streams.

For those five days and. nights, when thunder roared its sequel to fearful demonstrations of lightning, when hail fell despite the muggy warmth of the northerly gale, when the gale blew the little bach almost off its foundations there on top of the hill—our holidaymakers smoked themselves out when their oil-stove chose to function. They lived in the meantime on tinned meat and fruit, whiling away the days in fan tan ana mail jongg—may the seven dragons of Wing-pu bless the Celestial for his imperishable gifts to the race of Man!

The Beach. On the fifth day, they risked a trip to the beach. Oneroa, where picnickers the Sunday before frolicked and raced on a hard, white beach topped by a few yards of soft, luxurious trampled sand, had changed its face. Instead, one saw an expanse of yellow, rusty-red sea-shells by the uncountable million, strewn in orderly confusion and punctuated every few inches by a black spot that indicated a rounded pebble. The storm tides washed all that soft sand away and threw seaweed and shells up the grassy banks. On the beach there lay six or ten feet of rotting J black seaweed and dying jellyfish. Our holktay-makers returned to town in disgust on the first fine day, expectj ing, it being Friday night, that the I shops would be open in the city when i they landed. Disillusionment awaited j them. They had lost check of the days, and it was Saturday. They saw grey ironclads and a mighty luxury liner As folk lost from the everyday world, ' they inquired whence these shapes, and I learned that the Fleet was in! Where j could they have been not to have known ? ! Moral: When you take a summer holiday in mid-March, you must not mind the weather.