AMONG THE HILLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 292, 9 December 1936, Page 22

AMONG THE HILLS.

Kitty Goddard, 62, Mount Albert Road, Auckland, 5.W.2. A short time ago I was taken for a trip to s Huia, the first bay inside the Maiiukau Heads. We left home early in j the morning when the hills and fields were still drowsy and hushed, and the occasional twittering of birds made the quietude more pronounced. Now and then a little brown rabbit would dash across the road or scramble up a grassy slope. A pheasant stood for one moment 011 the ridge of a sloping field, just apart from a group of low ferns. We arrived shortly after eight o'clock and decided to go for a walk to Bald lvock, a hill overlooking the harbour entrance and so called because at the top if a very large bare rock. We walked along the road that runs back from the shore over the hills, winding, climbing, tracing its way between clay banks—-clay that held a certain beauty of its own in its colouring, red, yellow, streaked. And 011 the sides of the road were hundreds of clay pebbles in soft shades of mauve, red and greyblue, each one different but all lovely. After a fairly long walk we branched off from the road and followed a track which led up higher into the hills. Beside the path a merry, twinkling little waterfall tumbled from a rock and sped 011 down the slope. We stopped to drink and to rest awhile, then 011 we went again until at last we left the track and scrambled over uneven ground between clumps of manuka and old logs. All over the hills at intervals stood the skeletons of old trees, worm-eaten and bleached, dead for many years and giving the hills an appearance of age and secrecy. The wind swept across the grass, bringing occasional showers of misty rain. Two or three sheep ran bleating from our path as we went, and then at last, after a glorious run, we stood, battling with the wind, 011 the top of Bald Rock. We were now overlooking the entrance to the Manukau Harbour. The bar showed in lines of silver. Lines that lengthened, shortened, disappeared, with new lines forming, changing again, restlessly, untiringly. We looked in the opposite direction, up harbour. Away in the distance the mist hung low down, but the nenror land was quite clear. The sea looked multi-coloured with the reflection of clouds. We stayed for a while watching the view and picking out points of interest, then we began to retrace our steps. Down we went, running, jumping, -exhilarated, to join tlie track, tlion back to the road again and along past the Echoing llill. Here one side of the road is bounded by a steep bank of solid rock, and lielow there is an almost straight drop into the valley. We stood by the edge of the road and called loudly. The valley took up the call and repeated it softly like a whispered answer. But the misty rain was coming on again. Away we went, running for a sheltered nook among the trees. A few minutes and the shower had passed and we hurried on, back to the shore, across a stream and along the sea-front. We arrived back, tired and hungry, but our walk left, another of those treasures of memory —memory of sweeping winds, hilltops and sea. |