RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30761, 27 May 1965, Page 26

RANDOM REMINDER

HOME THOUGHTS

There’s nothing like thoughts of home to ward off fears, doubts and other disturbances that build up tensions within the frame. And these thoughts can be triggered off readily enough by tiny reminders even in the most unlikely places. This no doubt was the intention of those who engineered, if that is the word, the road that branches from the West Coast highway at Broken river to the ski fields at Mount Cheeseman. The West Coast highway is no great shakes itself at this point, but there’s no question of confusing the two roads for the Cheeseman road is, not to put too fine a point on it narrow, rough, winding and high.

The driver is so busy keeping to it, changing down, down and down, swinging the wheel round its impossible corners and jumping from foot pedal to foot pedal that he has little time to observe where the road is going; and he is a little surprised after his exertions to emerge at the top and find himself looking down on some of the ranges that not so long ago were towering above him. Not so his passengers. They have lived a number of lives as they swayed and swung perilously near precipices and bluffs with no visible means of support and looked down steep billsides imagining just how many times the car would roll before hit-

ting the really big rocks at the bottom. The engineers have anticipated all their qualms and have sought to allay them by providing comforting reminders among the wilds. There is, first, a fine old telephone booth, a veteran with domed roof to be sure, but unmistakably a reminder of civilisation. Next there is a familiar sign, N.P., but no parking meter, as yet. There is Cashel street, Papanui road and Montreal street. But connoisseurs of signs, especially if they have good memories, have a treat in store at the steepest strench of road. There, tacked at a crazy angle, is a sign which says: “Out cars stop here if required.”