ON MOUNTAIN TOPS

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22243, 6 November 1937, Page 3 (Supplement)

ON MOUNTAIN TOPS

Yaldhurst Meets Otira j At our school we write to pupils at Cashmere and Yaldhurst schools. One day we arranged for the Yaldhurst pupils to come as far as Arthur’s Pass in the train and then walk to the top of the Gorge. About 10 o’clock we met our leacners, piled into the car, and went as far as the second camp, about three miles up. Then we started up the zig-zag, which is about two miles long, so we had several rests.

When we reached the top wa rested in a shelter. While our* teacher boiled the billy we walked on to sec if the Yaldhurst children were coming. When they came wa all had lunch together. We then left our packs by the side of the road while we went up a track in the Otira valley. On the hillside we saw icicles several feet long which hung from

THE MONUMENT

Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson was a young engineer who made his way; about 70 years ago from Canterbury through the Otira Gorge to Westland, to find a way to the gold mines on the West Goar:.

Before this, the people coming over the gorge to Kumara and Hokitika were often lost in tha mountains or drowned in tha flooded rivers.

On March 7, 1937, the monument) was unveiled to this daring man. The stone was erected three* quarters of a mile from the highest part of the road. The first Arthur’s Pass road across the mountain was made roughly, and followed the river. As floods often washed it away, a track was made along the side of the cliffs. Sir Arthur Dobson told the Government that it would ba very difficult to make a road through Otira Gorge, as the cliff# were steep. The road is now wider, and is in good order. Cars now go) over very frequently, as long as the weather is good. —THELMA WINCHESTER 1 Caged 12)*