AKAROA, BANKS PENNSULA

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20731, 16 December 1932, Page 34

AKAROA, BANKS PENNSULA

MOTOR TOURING SECTION!

BANKS PENINSULA. A Beautiful Heritage. • BUSH-CLAD HILLS AND SHINING BAYS. {SPECIA.LLT WSITTEK *OK THE PRESS.) [By Johannes C. Andersen.] In Banks Peninsula Christchurch possesses an unrivalled recreation ground, and Christchurch people realise this more and more as the years go on; walkers and motorists alike find its attractions irresistible. Even an exile like myself finds a pleasure in revisiting the glimpses of the past by means of the magic carpet of the imagination. The attractions, like the graces, are three: —the exercise, the magnificent views, the historical associations.

For a comprehensive survey we must for once forgo the exercise and take "» motor, ascending by Dyer's Pass, •winding round by Kennedy's Bush to Gebbie's Pass, thence down to take 'EHesmere to? Littfe River, up to the summit again, where the choice offers <rf a descent to the head of Abaroa Harbour and on to Akaroa, Tor on along the Peninsula Summit road to catch the views of the many radiating hays, descending perhaps to Okain's or Little Akaloa or as the fancy leads. Stopping first at Dyer's Pass we may enjoy the panorama of the Canterbury Plains with its distant frame of hiil and mountain and cloud. It has been compared with Lombardy—why KhoukL it bt> compared with anything 5* It is unique, and hardly two days alike. "On this gigantic canvas," writes B. E. Baughan, "the hours and seasons paint i-xmtinually, and produce ever a aciv scene." Who has not watched this scene when a nor'-wester has made the atmosphere clearer, brought the mountains nearer, pouring a soft radiance over the slopes and into the valleys so that the ridges stand out more clearly, all in a fairy light of softest green, as if the wonderland of Kilnieeny were before ust Even the names of the peaks and hills become clothed in new meanings, and they take on the pictured vesture of romance. A little west of due north rises Mt. Alexander (2448 ft), 48 miles away, just inside the inner curve of Pegasus Bay, dipping to the Limestone Range, the Cheviot Hills lying to the extreme right. Mt. Alexander dips in ■ja. long slope to the west to Weka Pass, 44 utiles, from which issues the Waipara river behind Mount Dean. Mount ©earn dips to Mount Grey (3055 ft), 35 miles, lying north-north-west, and this block dips on the left and rises to Mount Karetu (3184 ft), Mount Thomas at north-west, 33 miles (3354 ft). Oxford Hill (230 ft), at about west-north-west, is 40 miles away, and slopes down to the left to tJia gorge, whence the great Waimakariri enters the plains, and can be seen crossing to the bay in a streak of silver. These are but the outer foothills; Jjot to the north, behind the Limestone Range, rise the snowy tops of the Sherwood Range, 90 miles away, and to the right, approaching the Cheviot Hills, the beautiful ridge of the Seaward Kaikouras, culminating in Tapuaenuku (9467 ft), 125 miles away. Between Mounts Alexander and Dean rise the Leslie Hills of Aniuri, 5000 to 6000 ft in height, and 80 miles away, Mount Skiddo w (5483 ft) of the Tekoa Range rises between Mounts Dean and Grey, and Tekoa itself (5291 ft), 67 miles. Between Mount Thomas and Oxford Hill rises the fine Pnke-te-raki (hill of heaven) Range, 45 miles, Mount Binsen (6096 ft), 60 miles, near Cass, rising „t the left of the Ashley Gorge. To the left of Oxford Hill rises the Torlesse Range, with Mount Torlesse (6554 ft), 40 miles, above the gorge of the Waimakariri, Porter's Pass lying in the dip at the left of the range. Prom this rises the Benmore Range, 48 miles, behind- the Malvern Hills, almost above the Hopn Hay homestead, and to the left of that homestead Mount Hut* (7180 ft)" &|eir 56 miles away. At west-south-west is the Two Thumb Range, 96. miles, and, to its, left Mount PeeJ (56?3fi), 76 miles. Even these high ridges, are not the Southern Alp*, hut only; the outlines of that great mountain mass which lies, 20 to 30- miles still further back, Mount Cook, invisible, rising due west, 122 Stiles aw&y. It is these that are lit by

tie nor'-wester as if they -were composed of light and mist, air and sunshine, if not of something even more ethereal. There is the picturing, too, of the informed imagination. 1 Human Romance. As for the human romance of these regions, let the reader open the pages of Aeland's Early Canterbury Buns; he will find enough there. It seems almost incredible that when the plains were first entered by the settlers the only trees were to be seen in'a few scattered clumps of bush—Hoon Hay, Eiccarton, Papanui, Te Tuahiwi, Ohoka, and Harewood Forest (Oxford Bush). It looks as if Christchurch had been cut out of thick bush, most of which still reI mained. But all that has been planted; the original, trees have gone, only a few acres of Eiccarton remaining, now reserved, thanks to the Deans family, for all time. Christchurch has many lovers, and she always will have, for she grows more beautiful as she grows older; she is a perpetual Galatea; and if her lovers forget that savage Polyphemus who growls from the mountains, her engineers keep a wary eye on him. He has threatened the lovers more than once—it looked serious in ISoß—threatened, not maybe to crush them under hurtled rock, but to smother them under cubic yards of shingle. Acis may bite his thumb at him, but he must be wary. This may not be Banks Peninsula, but it is part of the charm of it. _.Qoing °n from the pass to Kennedy's Bush we may leave the motor for a view straight down the harbour. It, and the adjoining deep bay, were«named Ports Cooper and Levy after two Sydnev merchants who financed whaling and trading ventures on these shores, and beyond Mount Cass to our right rise Cooper's Knobs, named after one of the same meu, "two or three remarkable, round, wooded, overhanging peaks, and form a good mark for steering up the harbour, with Ward's farm on Quail Island under them." So runs an early sailing direction.

It will be noted that it says the peaks were wooded; and at that earlv date the Peninsula presented a remarkably different appearance—more than half of it was thickly covered with bush, great forest trees, matai and totara] mixed with lesser growth extending from the summits to the water's edge. This area of bush extended from the west side of Port Levy across the hills to the head of Lake Forsyth, the whole of the northern and eastern and part of th esouthern portions being covered —an unbroken forest of 134,000 acres. The western portion, wlulst mostly bare was dotted with scattered clumps of which Dry Bush, Kennedy's Bush, JToon Hay Bush, Ahuriri Bush, and others are mere remnants. The bush was alive with birds; did I not hear as a boy of the multitude of pigeons which gave the name to Pigeon Bay? Several of i the birds then common are now .x----tinct; the orange-wattled crow (kokako), the saddleback (tieke), the South Island thrush (piopio),. the bush-can-ary (mohua), though they are found in very small numbers in other parts of New Zealand. On the open hills and plains the Maori quail (koreke) swarmed, even on the site of Christchurch. It may be said that at any rate the quail is still with us—no, it is quite extinct; not one is left in New Zealand; the lively bird that calls so persistently for MaePherson and Miss Harper is not'our Maori quail, but either the Californfcn.br Tasmanian importation. This; bush supplied Christ- ' church with timber and firewood for many a dav; it might have been supl posed that the ancient Toi-kai-rekau had 1 left the north and reappeared at O-takaro; Toi-ki-rakau (Toi the woodeater) unsatisfied till the Peninsula was depleted. »

A Volcanic Cone. Directly before us Quail Island (180 acres) lies out in the harbour, so named by Captain W. Mein Smith in 1842 because ho flushed some Maori quail there. The surveyor, Jollie, flushed many on the site of Christchurch, flushed them and shot them, too. The calm grey eye of the harbour looks up at us; but that calm grey eye once glowed fiery red as that oi' Kilauea, when Kj, the god of earthquakes, glared at Kangi, who gave him life while he convulsed Pupa, who refused to give him birth. For Banks Peninsula is a volcanic eone that ages ago was thrust from the sea off the coast of Canterbury, Lyttclton and Akaroa harbours being ancient craters. The Lyttclton crater had a period of quiescence and no doubt partly filled, but it burst out into new fiery life, blew out the plug and starred the crater walls in the monstrous effort, and dying down again, left Quail Island as the sign of it's second outburst; its sign, but not necessarily the seal. It would seem that fires still slumber below there; n warm spring on the LyttcltonGovcrnor'd Bav road is evidence of that. How the sea was let in, who can say? —but that also let in the ships, and the one-time inferno is now a harbour. Godley Head terminates the crater wall on the left; its light, 450 ft above sealevel, was first lit in 1805. In prc-pil-grim days it was known as Cachalot Hegd, after the French whaler Cachalot, which in 1838 was almost shipwrecked there. The French whalers frequented the bays of the Peninsula from early in 1838, and Little Port Cooper, under Adderley Head (Toloa) was their anchorage while their boats scouted up and down Pegasus Bay looking for whales. Hempleman appeared five years earlier; he started shore-whaling here in 183G, but moved to Peraki in 1837. Half-way from Godley Head is seen Lyttelton, sheltering in the crook of the arm of the harbour. Mount Pleasant Clfi37ft) rising above it. Here Major Hornbrook started a sheep station about 1852, and tried transporting his wool-biles easily to Lyttelton by rolling them down the hill. He tried only once. In ISC4 he imported frogs into Canterbury, the first to croak in that province so far as I know; he placed them in the ponds of Mount Pleasant; why ever did he want to make it Mount More Pleasant —strange - man ?■ Purau Bay. Almost opposite to Lj'ttclton is. Purau Bay. The Greenwood brothers squatted there in 1844, when it was known as Greenwood's Bay. But in 184G three lags stuck up the homestead and took what they wanted, then made off across the harbour in Greenwood's boat intending to wait on the pioneers at Riccarton. As soon as they felt it safe, the Greenwoods hurried over to Port Levy for help, set off in a whaleboat, rowed round Godley Head, over the dangerous Sumner bar, up the then shingle-bottomed, unclogged Avon, past the Bricks (the bricks were still lying there), and reached Eiccarton first. It was winter, and the lags had been delayed in the snow of the hills, besides losing their way, and when they arrived the Riccarton people were ready for them. This and the Maori worry disgusted the Greenwoods; they sold out to Rhodes in 1847, and the bay was Rhodes Bay to the first settlers of Lyttelton, who got their meat, at a payable price, from Rhodes. Rhodes has gone, and Purau Bay is Purau again. It was Acheron Bay for a while, because the Acheron lay* there for a short time while surveying the coasts in 1849-51. Off the eastern head of Purau is Eipa Island, where the famous Jonathan Eoberts was confined in 1888, but

at once escaped and got clean away. To the southward of Purau rises the highest peak of "the Peninsula —Herbert Peak (3014 ft). Bnowdon, Eng. land's highest mountain, is only 3560 feet; our mountains of that altitude arc regarded only as hills. There is some confusion between Herbert Peak and Mount Herbert \2&osft), which lies about two miles to the south-west. It was probably the high peak that was known to the Maori as le Aim Patiki; to the Maori was known his whakatipu of forest; we know of it only by hearsay. Below us is Governor's Bay. where Dyer lived, after whom the pass was naniod ;. and further round lived Potts, one of our best naturalists. He had a fernery on • the hanks of a creek through his property —Ohinetaln — .stocked with many varieties of ferns gathered by him' in his wanderings over New Zealand, but an abnormal llcod in the creek washed the whole of it into the harbour, and part of his heart with. it. Further round, again, near Tedtlingto.ll, Hay and Sinclair landed when exploring for country in 1842. Thev climbed Gebbic's Pass, and were mortified on their return to linu their boat high and dry, the fallen tide having left it stranded on the exjKJsed mud-flat lying between them and their anchored vessel. They chose Pigeon Biv as their home, settling there is 1&13. Looking at the native pa, Rapaki, it is remembered that the first design was to locate Lyttelton in an adjoining bay, and Christchureh at the head of the hay at Teddington. Many like memories crowd up as the eye roves along the waterfront, alon£ the tops —Evan's Pass, the Brittle Path, White's road, the Sugarloaf (1030 ft), but there is more on the other side of the Peninsula. The Other Side. New glimpses of harbour and plain open as the road is followed-to Gebbie's Pass, and the. harbour i s left as that valley is descended, and Lake Ellcsmere skirted on the way to Little River (VVairewa). Just before Little River Lake Forsyth appears, whero in 1887 the first interprovincial regatta was held. During the early whaling days the; lake was open'to the sea, boats sailing in to "the'river" for timber. The entrance is now silted up with shingle. Then on up to the Summit Hotel, where the route may be taken along the Peninsula Summit road past the heads of Port Levy, Pigeon Bay, Little Akaloa, Okain's Bay, or down into any one of these, or instead of that from the Summit Hotel down to the bays at the head of Akaroa Harbour —a beautiful drive. And here it may be seen that the bush, and with it the blessed birds, could easily be coaxed hack again'. Here and there the trees are so thick on cither side of the road, sometimes meeting overhead, that one drives in a tunnel of green—delightful sunshine and shadow alternating. Why should not planting of native trees be encouraged so that one may drive, as it were, through bush as'in earlier days the pioneers walked? The Port Hills Summit road running at a height of from 625 ft to 1100 ft above sea-level, was not started until 1900; it was meant for recreation ; it was not a necessity; and in 32 years it has, largelv through the energy of Mr H. G. Ell, been formed either as path or road right from Godley Head to Gebbie's Pass, and doubtless the linking up with the Peninsula Summit road will soon bo accomplished so that the sixty odd miles from Godley. Head to Akaroa Head may he enjoyed anions the summits of our Peninsula hills. The latter road was a necessity; it was needed to «-ivc land access to the radiating hays of the Peninsula. Ebenezer Hay was the

CHRISTMAS HME W YEAR

first to feel the pinch of this necessity. His best market was Wellington; his nearest was Akaroa. He built a boat to run backward and forward between Pigeon Bay and Wellington ; he cut a track to walk backward and forward between Pigeon Bay and Akaroa, carrying his produce and his stores on his back. This, widened from a narrow path to a track 6ft wide, was cut by eight men for a distance of lo miles, through 'rugged bush, and surj mounting an elevation of 1300 ft, in three weeks. When it was linked up to Port Levy it was adopted by the colonists as the route between Lyttelton and Akaroa. The road started from a point just north of the island Horomonga, on the east side of Port Levy, leading, after a somewhat steej> rise to near the summit of the ridge, over the hill on an easy gradient through thick bush extending to the shoreline of Pigeon Bay. On emerging from the bush, the' homestead of Mrs Sinclair came suddenly into view, where the road took to the leach for a mile, until reaching the homestead of E. Hay. It again entered the bush, following -up the thirteen-times-crossed stream, 'overshadowed here and there with treeferns. On again mounting the hill, through fern and manuka, a splendiu view was gained—an undulating country bounded by wooded hills-, Pigeon Bay lying lake-like at one extremity. Bush-was again entered until the ridge was reached, and Akaroa Harbour lay in view, the road passing at the point where Onawe joins the mainland. The path divided here, and the left-hand path, though leading through swampy ground, was the one' to take. After yet more bush, the j

beach was reached at a ferry, f ro » which a boat was usually taken for Akaroa, the halfcrown fare saving l walk of eight miles on the track which continued over the spurs and round to Akaroa. A More Direct Track. On the Provincial Council being s i ves control in 1853, its first important wo* here was the cutting of a more dire* track, known as the Akaroa Bridle rold passing from Parau bcaek u P to &« ? m - 3 , ust l . t J 2 the west of Bl ">des Sugar! loaf (a different sugarloaf from ifa»U| on the opposite side of the Jiarbourt. and reaching the summit at the' saddto between the Kaituna and Port Sew -valleys. Thence it struck east aha* i the summit past Mounts Sinclair at an elevation of' 2600 ft saw ! ing Hay's track about a mile w >* half north-east of Barry's Bay; add &. ■seending by gentle inclines to. IM*afo. chelle-Bay.-'From the potaVvUdTC met Hay's track the road eastward along the summits Bay Peak and Duvauchelle '?&£&s£ ; turning, southward.' past £averick Peak, and along, tfe'MEgS' behind Akaroa,.-past Flag I&£?y4N»' to Akaroa lighthouse 4fltt4UMW : lines carried An**fs&f% ftfojrlli pus bayis, and in line, linking it up 'yffmEßugzßE* ' Over this line.-TO'iiavßjpErauMtfMt ing in shadow arid* been endeavouring to jwsro 'the -«bL to show the difficulty in this bush country, *&*&&***, appreciated even by thon -wbr hai tr ! part to destroy it. Very little «f tfe' bush remains now, but maayjiatiyetres-,. friends nod to me as wo. pass in tJse'T -B-> -J