SOUTH ISLAND TOURIST ROUTES

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21805, 10 June 1936, Page 6

SOUTH ISLAND TOURIST ROUTES

TO TO SDITOB OF TU PKXSI.

Sir,—The proposed South Island Travel Association of New Zealand, with headquarters at Lyttelton, referred to in your leading article of June 1, is an invitation to our visitors to use the “tradesman’s entrance,” when clearly the “gateway” to the South Island should be,in the sunny north. There is more scenery in the South Island than the snowfields of Mount Cook. The first cruise of the Union Steam Ship Company’s Maunganui from Sydney could be considerably shortened and rendered more effective by the following itinerary:—Sydney to Nelson, Queen Charlotte Sound, Pelorous Sound, Picton, Wellington, Milford Sound, George Sound, Doubtful Sound, Dusky Sound, Stewart Island and Bluff. You will know that we have in Nel- | son the largest road passenger organisation in the Southern Hemisphere, and with the final completion of the proposed scenic highways of the South Island, the following routes for tourist distribution will be available. From Nelson: (a) via the West Coast, comprising the Duller gorge, coastal road Westport to Greymouth, Lakes Kanieri, lanthe, Mapourika, Mathieson, Franz Josef, and Fox glaciers, Otira; (b) via Lewis pass and midland routes, taking in lakes Rotoiti and Rotocoa, Maruia and Hanmer Springs. From Picton, via the east coast and Kaikoura. All the foregoing converge on Christchurch and effectively dispose of the territory north of your city and on the West Coast.

South; Milford Sound via the Homer Saddle to Lake Te Anau, thence the Eglinton Valley, with which the Christchurch, Timaru, Mount Cook, Queenstown service could link up, converge on Dunedin and Invercargill, with Bluff as the final port of departure. After 16 years hard fight a tourist office was opened here, and before being closed down in 1929, due to the depression, the volume of business had reached £7OOO in a year. Is not this a fair case for a Government tourist office in Nelson? May we ex?ect its early re-establishment?— burs, etc., ASHTON WHITING, Nelson, June 8, 1936.