YOUTH HOSTELS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21966, 15 December 1936, Page 6

YOUTH HOSTELS

MR J. E. LOVELOCK’S INTEREST

EXTENSIONS IN THE OXFORD area

Referring to the nomination of Mr J. E. Lovelock, who has been nominated as vice-president of the Youth Hostel Association of New Zealand, in the position left vacant by the late Mrs F. Wilding, the honorary organiser, Miss C. H. Wilding said that Mr Lovelock, during his three years at Oxford, tramped a great deal in the Lake District. the Cotswolds. the Avon Valley, the Wye Valley, and the South Downs, staying always at the Youth Hostels. It was these same hostels that many of the New Zealand Youth Hostel Association party going to England next year had planned to visit. Mr Lovelock. because he realised the value to the community of youth hostels, was interested in the New Zealand movement and had accepted nomination In a letter accepting nomination, Mr Lovelock stated that although he had so often availed himself of the excellent hostel facilities in Britain, he had not been aware, until quite recently, of their existence in New Zealand The New Zealand hostels, said Miss Wilding, although on a very humble scale compared with overseas hostels, had nevertheless accomplished very useful service in the last four years of their existence, enabling many hundreds to go for long walking holidays out in the open. The present Government has recognised the value of the Youth Hostel Association and recently gave a third concession on all railway tickets to association members engaged on a tramping expedition. The Oxford service car had also given a muclwappreciated concession. Overseas, the railways and Channel ferry steamers gave important concessions from practically the foundation of the association. The hostels here, as in all overseas countries, were open not only to Hampers, but also to cyclists, thenonly qualification for membership being that they must travel under their own muscular power, so this excluded motor-cycles or cars. In Holland, the form of locomotion adopted by some Youth Hostel Association members was a canoe, and they 1 paddled themselves down a canal from one hostel to another. . . , ,

Youth hostels have spread widely over Banks Peninsula: Akaroa, Barry's Bay. Duvauchelle, Kennedy’s Bush, Holmes Bay, Le Bon’s, Little Akalda, Okain’s. and Pigeon Bay. The Peninsula makes an excellent tramping ground, with its winding roads commanding magnificent views over the wide-stretching plain, ending with snow-capped Alps on the one side and on the other the blue waters of the famed Akaroa harbour. The tramper has every opportunity of sea bathing. “The second chain of hostels is on the West Coast,” said Miss Wilding, “and instead of the Peninsula farmhouses, whose owners have so hospitably received Youth Hostel Association trampers, hotels have been more used. Unfortunately, some who helped before have withdrawn, as putting up trampers to them, at Is a night and Is 3d a dinner, is more a public-spirited act. not a money-making concern. Mr Mclntosh’s Hokitika hotel and Mr Dunn’s Duvauchelle Hotel arc generously continuing to remain youth hostels, but. especially on the Coast, there is urgent need for more hostels, “The commencement of a new chain in splendid tramping country has just, been formed in the Oxford region, comprising the foothills and the deep valleys and gorges which lead into the Alps. The one hostel is at Cooper’s Creek, the other at Ashley Gorge. It is hoped that this chain will be extended, though cither hostel makes a solendid centre for two or three days, from which to make expeditions up the Ashley Gorge, climbing Mount Oxford, or Mount Richardson, or following up the Lees Valiev.’’ In a message to the Youth Hostel Association, Mr J. A. Lovelock says:— “My sincere good wishes ffir the future success of the movement, which I know through much personal experience to be a very valuable one to the youth of this, as well as to every other country, and to hope that the young people of New Zealand may be enabled to take full advantage of the splendid opportunities which they have in this country for free open-air life, the opportunities of which I feel they are perhaps at present not sufficiently aware. Not until they have sampled the overcrowded life in older parts of the world can they fully appreciate the opportunities which they possess in this country, and I trust most sincerely that the Youth Hostel Association movement will grow in strength and receive the full support that it deserves, not only from the youth, but also from the older members of the community, who can do so much to help the work along by material support.”