NEW COAST ROUTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 263, 7 November 1939, Page 9

NEW COAST ROUTE.

WELLINGTON ROADS.

BOON TO MOTORISTS.

PAEKAKARIKI CLIMB NO MORE

(By J.C.)

Motorists from the North to Welling

ton are now provided with a greatly improved new highway for the final section of the routo to the Capital City, as the result of the excellent work carried out on the Packakariki coast and in tho Ngauranga Gorge. The opening of these two great road improvements on Saturday was a double event which came at a particularly appropriate moment just in time for the Centennial Exhibition.

Tho elimination of the zig/.ag climb over Paekwkariki hill reduces the motorist's climb from a summit altitude of 815 feet, with a grade of one in nine, to a height of 200 feet and a grade at the steepest of one in seventeen. The danger and difficulty of tho old struggle up and over tho range disappear with the construction o" the seaside road by way of Pukerua Bay. Packakariki hill, or rather mountain, is the western buttress of the Tararua Ranges which here most closely approach tho ocean. The sharp ascent and descent of Paekakariki had at least one good point. It gave the traveller a view of great expanse and beauty, the first "long lookout" in the whole of the journey through Wellington proyince. The western ocean, the islands, the of the South Island in the distance, unfolded to the eye from a pinnacle almost directly above the surf beating on the" rocks eight hundred feet below. The view is there still, of course, for those who seek it, and the seeking is all the safer now because of the deviation of traffic.

A Ninety-year-old Road. This is a road of history, "this climb over Faekakariki, for it is part of tho first important road for wheeled traffic made in Wellington Province, tho first, at any rate, on the West Coast. Tts construction dates back to IS4B, when Governor Grey completed the pneUioation of the Maoris in the Wellington district by getting tliem to work roadluaking for wages.

An early reference to the scenery was inado in the diary of Mr, Donald Maclean (later Sir Donald), the great Native Minister, who was travelling hero on native land purchase duty in IH4S. Tho following are some entries from his unpublished MS. journal which I have before me: —

"Thursday, March 10, IS4S.—Left Major Purie's (police station, Waikanao) at 8 in the morning for Wellington. Called at Jenkins' (near Paekakariki) on the way. Ascended by the new line of road, which resembles very much the ascent to the Ulue Mountains in New Holland (Australia); with deep ravines and gullies over a wild, mountainous country, rising gradually to about SOO feet above the level of the sea. Met several parties of natives employed on the road and witnessed a continued diversity of mountain scenery similar to what is sometimes met witli in the Highlands, particularly about the wild valleys of lovely Glencoe. The construction of this road is one of the greatest boons that can be bestowed on all the races in the island, and generations yet unborn will have reason to regard this act of Captain Grey's policy as of itself deserving of having his' memory recorded in the minds of every well-wisher of this fair and flourishing island of New Zealand.''

Approach to Wellington. Of the approach to Wellington front the heights of the present Johnsonville and Khandallah, Mr, Maclean wrote: "The first poop of Wellington Harbour, as you descend the hills, is beautifully picturesque, and as we see few objects •which cannot bear comparison, I think it has some to Toliermory Bay in the West of Scotland, but a much lovelier place if it had a greater extent of fertile country, of which the coast within 40 miles of it is rather deficient, and the suburbs of the place altogether barren of good available roads."

That description, true enough ninety yeans ago, can be revised considerably to-day, of course, in Wellington's favour so far as the land is concerned. The roads, too; the city and its suburbs are wonderfully crws-croesed and knitted together with«motor roads that climb nearly a thousand feet in places. City and County Council and Public Works Department engineers have grappled successfully with reading and water supply problems in innumerable places of great technical difficulty.