TRAINS TO RUN SOON

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22467, 30 July 1938, Page 14

TRAINS TO RUN SOON

PROGRESS ON TRUNK LINE

CHRISTMAS EXCURSIONS PLANNED

RAIL ACCESS TO EXTENSIVE PICNIC RESORTS

Such good progress is being made with the construction of the South Island Main Trunk that it is very likely that as early as Christmas this year, trains will be running occasionally to take excursionists into the lovely picnic country round about the famous Hundalee Reserve, and even further afield to the sunny terraces and beaches around Claverley. Already the Railway Department is making tentative arrangements, with the co-operation of the Public Works Department, for the first of these excursions. Officials are confident that the completion of’ the line into the Hundalee will open up one of the finest summer excursion and camping areas yet exploited from the city. The Hundalee has been famed for many years among campers and motorists, but not until rail access is available, will the rank and file towndweller be able to wander through its fine native forests, along the miles of sandy shores from the Conway river mouth to the Amuri Bluff, and across the bluff itself, where the sea-coast scenery is probably as beautiful as could be found anywhere in New Zealand. New Railhead at Hundalee It is expected that the Hundalee station, which will stand at the Canterbury end of the Hundalee Gorges will be the railhead of the line by Christmas. The rails have been laid as far as the Conway rail bridge, well beyond Parnassus. The steel girders have been delivered for this bridge (one of the biggest on the line), and are already being sent to the Conway and being erected. It is expected by the District Public Works Engineer, Mr F. Langbein, that this bridge will be completed in a little more than a month. From the Conway rail bridge, to the Conway road bridge at the mouth of the Hundalee, is only five miles, and Mr Langbein thinks that the rails should be laid and the ballasting sufficiently far forward at Christmas to enable excursion trains to be run. Huts Will be Rented It would be difficult to imagine any more delightful ground for picnickers or campers, and at present it is the intention of the Public Works Department to maintain some of the fine workmen’s huts built on the camps along this section of the line and rent them at small weekly rentals to campers. These camps, such as those at Claverley, Oaro, and Goose Bay stand in fine glades of; shady. r..:e ake and ngaio trees, close to the seashore, well sheltered and drained and in native forests where, all day long in summer, birds sing merrily even in all the present sourd of explosion, electric driller, bulldozer, and tractor. From where the Conway river reaches the sea, only a short distance from the Hundalee station, right to the Axnun Bluff and along further even to Oaro, stretches a belt of warm country where frosts are almost unknown, where oranges and lemons grow and ripen in the open, alongside grapes and other fruit rarely found so far south, and where there seems always a perpetual spring season. The sea breezes temper summer heat and keep off winter cold. Just south of Oaro—as an instance of what a mild climate will do—is a stretch of a mile or so of wild cape-gooseberries which last season supplied enough fruit for tons of jam made by the wives of men at the camps there. It was possible during the season to stop a motor-car on the rough track to the Amuri Bluff tunnel camp, and without getting out of the car, pick any amount of berries. Crayfishing for Pleasure Warm sea currents strike the coast a little above the Conway river mouth, and probably account to some degree for the remarkably equable climate. These warm waters also bring to the coast the famous Kaikoura crayfish. The crayfish belt starts south of the Amuri Bluff and extends right along the coast beyond Kaikoura to Cape Campbell, and crayfishing will undoubtedly draw many hundreds of visitors to this area about the Claverley and Amuri section of the railway once access is available. It is possible that February will see the railhead pushed to Claverley, and provided landowners are willing, will see thousands of tired city people recuperating in wonderfully healthy surroundings. Even the possibility of running excursions as far as the Hundalee railhead at Christmas opens up splendid chances for the people who can go there, for close at hand are the fine reaches of the Conway river, which is' bordered for a mile or so by open glades and sheltered by rows of old willows and long belts of native timber.