A VISIT TO MOUNT COOK.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7262, 23 January 1889, Page 6

A VISIT TO MOUNT COOK.

[By E. M. C.) OTAIO, January 21. I have just returned from a trip to Mount Cook, and it may perhaps interest strangers who are meditating the excursion to learn that during the past three weeks the weather has been superb on the Mackenzie Plains, and Mount Cook has stood out free from mist and cloud, whilst all the time the lower ranges of mountains on the East Coast have been covered with fogs. I know that people are frequently deterred from visiting mountain scenery when the weather is cold and wet at Christchurch, Timaru and Dunedin* but, as a rule, when the weather is bad on the East Coast it is generally bright and fine araid the mountain ranges. This cer tainly has been my experience. As some of your readers may be unaware of the fact (for it is singular how few there are in New Zealand who visit the scenery of their own country). I venture to remind them that there is direct communication by rail to Fairlie Creek, and from there by coach, in about a day and a half, to the Hermitage under thfe shadow of Mount Cook itself. I confess that I was quite surprised at the excellence of the coaches and horses, and I may add with perfect truthfulness of the drivers, and I never saw in New Zealand teams turned . out so well or driven so carefully. The last part of the journey of about thirty miles is over a very rough road, which tests to the utmost the skill of the driver and the excellence of the horses. The inns on the road are of course very small, but are clean, and the food much better than is generally found in inns of a similar character. The Hermitage, as the inn is called under Mount Cook, is kept by Mr Huddleston, the most enthusiastic lover of mountain scenery whom I ever encountered. He is aided by a Swiss family, who do their " level best" to entertain visitors. Mr Huddleston difficulty in building his houa*|aneaf the great mountain range. The violent galss i which occasionally rage round the mountain sides seemed determined to 1 defeat the energies of the first man who d*red to build his home amid these ancient solitudes. The hurricane, time after time, tore the roof off his house before it was firmly fixed, and scattered it over the valley. The fail of the avalanches frightened away the timid workmen from the town. If the first man who crossed the stormy sea was hailed by the poet as brave, what must be said of the man who dared to raise his roof tree close to those vast seas of {c& which steal down the mountain sides, pierce the valleys, and, melting under the warm winds of summer, discharge their icy water into.the Ta&man? Any traveller who has listened to the thundering of the avalanches, the roar of the torrents, br .felt the blast of the nor'-wester fresh from the snows and ice rivers of these great mountain ranges, must confess that no man who had not an iron nerve and a supreme love for nature in her wildest moods, would have dared to do what Mr Huddleston has done. The Hermitage is situated under the shelter of an ancient moraine, now covered in with bush, which is carefully preserved. An easy path leads up to the top of the moraine, and from the I summit, reached in about twenty minutes, a grand view is disclosed. Gigantic glaciers are'seen on all sides. Some pure I white, descending into the valleys, where I they mingle (if such a word may be : applied to glaciers) with the frozen i streams, falling (for though their motion iis slow, yet it is sore) from other ranges, ! until at length, torn by compression between narrow valleys, and having lost all their purity, and soiled with mud, and covered with gigantic boulders, they still move slowly on with their burdens until they are dissolved, and flow rapidly away in huge torrents, at times compressed within -harrow limits, then spreading out, as is the fashion of New Zealand rivers, till at length they are lost in the deep blue waters of the Lake Pukaki. Above these vast ice rivers, with their caverns, and pinnacles and boulders, Mount Cook rises, and asserts his dignity by towering high above his fellows. Pure white Ice streams flow down his sides until they meet the glaciers of the surrounding mountains. As the sun sets, ever varying -lights and shades come and go, and from rosy to purple hue, the mountain fades at length into darkness. But although the noise of man be absent, nature is never silent in these solitudes. Huge blocks of ice fall with crashing sound into the running river which flows through the Tasman glacier. Mighty fragments of ice are broken off the glaciers which hang | over precipices too steep even for l a glacier to cling. Avalanches like the rumble of distant thunder are heard throughout the day and night. Here is the spot for a man tired of the weary race which never ends for money to recruit his nerves and energies. Here the globe 'trotter may see "sights which even Switzerland cannot afford, and here ! tbe man blase with the search for pleasure, which ever recedes as he seeks her, may find a pure delight in contemplating nature at work. in her mighty laboratory. If it be a disgrace to live in London and never to have entered St. Paul's Cathedral or Westminster Abbey, what can be said of the many in New Zealand who, having the means and opportunity, rush to see the sights of other lands, and neglect one of the most wonderful sights in the world, Mount Cook; or, in the Maori's more poetical description, Mount Aorangi—the Cloud in Heaven.