The Track Builder

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Track Builder

H. G. Ell's Service to Christchurch — A Model for Other Cities HE made hiking easy—but not too easy. That was H. G. Ell's hobby—H. G. Ell, member of Parliament and sometime Postmaster-General about 25 years ago. As a poliiicia 11 lip was not, perhaps, an outstanding figure in the long roll of the Dominion's legislators; his fame rests on his unremitting service to his City of Christchurch and fie was probably the first man with vision to recognise the valuable asset the Plains City has in the Port Hills. Christchurch the Beautiful is flat as a table, in a setting level for miles on all sides, but on the east where a rampart ridge separates her from Port Lyttelton. to which she has access through a milelong tunnel —there are two traffic roads

—Dyer's Pass on the south and one I from Sumner on the mirth—and it is a long way round by either route—the Pioneer's Trail—locally called the Bridle Path —and Heathcote Valley road are not used, at any rate by vehicles, although there is a story tint a 50-vear-old taximan once drove his car over both. < If you are a citizen of Auckland, Wellington or Dunec'in you are used to hills. The hilltops call you. ?«[nunt. Eden. Rangitoto, the heights of Wellington and Dunedin are assets beyond any money" value, and the man from any of these towns senses the silenj. appeal of the Port Hills barrier —"Come to me. come to me and see what I shall show you." For a time the stranger is open to the charm of Christvhurch —the placid Avon, the avenues of stately English trees, Haglev Park, the classic beauty of the university buildings and Rolleston Avenue —but he misses horizons. Soon the Port Hills rampart beckons—this 1800 ft ridge with its rock outcrops piercing the eastern skyline. H. G. Ell surely felt like that for he was a man who believed that from the hills came help and inspiration. Local cynics have said that Christehurch folk can do with hill climbing; the habit widens the mental and physical outlook, and, moreover, it is a correct're

for flat feet. Ell may have thought so 1 too and he was 110 cynic. Emerson wrote that "an institution is but the lengthened shadow of one man'' and Ell has left behind him the Summit Public Trust which began to function in IOi.V Some years before that date many miles' of tracks had been made. The trail* are three or four feet wide. wHI-graded and practically level for many miles.' connecting Dyer's Pass road with Sum-I ner and (iodley Head lighthouse. On | the south side they extend to Kennedv'sl Hush. Cooper's Noli and other points.'lt I is said that Akaroa. about 40 miles from Christchurch is the objective; the loading scheme also provides for motor

By ... H. Keary

I . | roads. Suitably placed are tea kiosks, the persons in charge being-also ctis- ! todians for any native bush adjacent, I for a not unimportant part of the trust's duty is the preservation of forest areas. As there were no settlements in the part of the peninsula that the writer has | traversed, it will be seen that the kiosks 'are a haven of refuge in the event of sudden changes of weather—indeed, Ell I seems to have overlooked nothing to i make hiking safe. The kiosks are stonej built and very solid, as they need to 'be at that altitude. Thev bear quaint names—Ye Sign of Ye 'Takahe, (the notornis. an extinct native bird), near the Cashmere Hills tram terminus. Ye Sign of Kiwi in Dyer's Piss, Ye Sign of \e Bellbird at Kennedy's Bush and. . further south. Ye Sign of'Ve Paekhorse and others. When, through death and resignations, the Summit Public Trust [ ceases to exist, the Public Trust of the j Dominion takes up its job: thus the : movement, started by Ell, will become the perpetual care of the State 3nd must, in the long run, take in the whole II peninsula. | The view westward from the Tort j Hills is inspiring beyond expression— : the whole of Christehurch, the Canterbury Plains and. in the extreme disJ tance, the foothills and snow-capped j Southern Alps. On the east, Lvttelton Harbour. Banks Peninsula—all hilltops and jrullies—and when a southerly blows J the tussock grass for miles undulates

like sea waves. The hills around Lyttelton Harbour are not heavily timbered: they are mostly tussock covp-ed. and rock outcrops are a feature of tlie whole peninsula. 11l its old-time trackless condition this wind-swept wilderness mu«t have been an awkward place to escape from when a southerly gale sprang up. One had to be weather-wise in those days. There is the half-forgotten tragedy in lss.T. when young Lillcy and a schoolmate—-lads in their early 'teens peri-lied in the snow. I hey had climbed the ridge pr<>bnVi\ from St. Martins, ilir- eastern Christ' church suburb. J\i-t here the h i 111«»; widens out into a .-mall plat-au and the boys, heedless of time and weather lingered thereon until the blizzard caught them. Bewildered by wind ant] snosv, they lost all sense of direction and died from exposure. One afternoon in May. 1021. my wife and 1 were walking from "the Sign oi the Kiwi'' on the track to Lyttelton by way of the Pioneers' Path. To our sur prise we saw a stratige sight on thf plateau—two iron shafts like tram poleset up about 1">0 yards apart some little distance from the trail. One we ex amined; an inscription stated that the pole marked the spot where iloht Lilley s body was found. Our experience was disquieting. The afternoon wa dull; there was a menacing silence it that, solitude; no bird life, and Nature j seemed to hold her breath. A blacl j cloud was banking up in the south, lr imagination we saw the plight of thos< lads, trapped on this shelterless place for the way home to St. Martin?—or maybe. Rapaki on Lyttelton Harbouris a declivity that is almost a pjvcipier It was a long way to Lyttelton — anyhow, it seemed to be—and our jaun became a forced march. We saw th< first street lamp of Lyttelton at thi foot of the Bridle Path at 4.43 p.m. \Y< looked back—a black wall had blottec out the track and hilltop and the gab rising. I can see them now -those twii memorials of that tragedy in ISP3—bu also alive and fo*-h are the memorie of days of deliglitful--and safe—hiking Ell s scheme enlarged the somewha restricted tramping region of his dav His first thought was for the walkers those who loved the bracing uplands those who strode along in Indian fileno traffic rules: no honking of moto horns; no sound in the wilderness bu their own voices and the music of thi winds. A great movement this hikingwell organised during the last few vear in fJreat Britain. Germany and a lev other countries. Improved race phvsiqu< is the result, and. in his home province Ell the pioneer has done his work well He has gone to his rest, leaving a his most fitting memorial thp netwnrl of tracks and roads carved on the ever lasting hills of Banks Peninsula.