NOT ONLY MOUNT COOK Plea For A Plane Table On The Hills

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31091, 21 June 1966, Page 18

NOT ONLY MOUNT COOK Plea For A Plane Table On The Hills

(Specially written for “The

Press” by

D. HALLIDAY)

The South Island of New Zealand has a panorama of mountains comparable with the world’s finest; and we in Canterbury have in the Port Hills and Banks Peninsula, a vantage-point like the front row of the circle from which to see the spectacle. Yet no move has been made to help the “spectators” to add knowledge of what they look at to the virtue of their curiosity. Why is there still no plane table on the Summit road or some other strategic point of outlook to help visitors and residents to identify the peaks and other geographical features in our panorama? I have seen the one on the hills not far from Queenstown; and now there is one at Lyttelton. 1 have heard that the plane tables at Hokitika and Arthur’s Pass are greatly valued by visitors to these places. I suppose I am not above the average in taking an intelligent interest in the aesthetic assets of the district I live in; but over the last two years 1 have been slowly, sometimes painfully, acquiring knowledge that would often have delighted me if 1 had had it 30 years ago.

My interest in this question began with an attempt to discover from how many places in Canterbury Mount Cook can be seen.

The quest started some two miles south-east of Burnham, from where I could see that the line of the Southern Alps in a westerly direction receded, opening up a panorama of more distant mountains. I thought it possible that Mount Cook could be seen from the vicinity. I borrowed a telescope—and later binoculars—and a map, supplied my own pins and a length of cotton; and the peaks I had looked at so long and so lovingly began to acquire identity. From A Packing-Case 1 borrowed a packing-case, too, from someone connected with the building of station CHTV 3 on the Sugar Loaf and saw Mount Cook from the Port Hills for the first time. My packing-case plane table fixed it perfectly as lying between Mount Winterslow to the right and Mount Somers to the left, just beside the Thumbs of the Two Thumb range. The low peak of Cook and the Thumbs slowly disappear as you come down towards the city from Dyers Pass; but the high peak can still be seen as you come to the trees at Victoria Park. It is probably true to say that Mount Somers offers the only obstruction to seeing at least part of the summit ridge of Mount Cook from any point with a westerly aspect on Banks Peninsula or the Port Hills. Haze is rarely troublesome above 2000 ft. There is a place on the Southbridge road just south of Doyleston from where the high peak of Mount Cook can just be seen between the second and third high points Of the Harper range; and this gave me horizontal as well as perpendicular accuracy. A check with heights scaled to the map, allowance made for the curvature of the earth, and I knew Mount Cook could be seen from quite a large area of the plains. Tasman, Too

I had looked for one mountain and found two; for it must be Mount Tasman that lies (from memory) two and a half times the length of Cook’s summit ridge to the right. It could be seen from several places on my own farm, “Arborfield,” Ellesmere, where trees did not obscure the view; and my present pleasure allows no regrets for what might have been in the past. But I do want to make an earnest plea to local bodies, organisations and individuals interested in making the most of a natural asset. They can secure for coming generations far more of that kind of interest and satisfaction that has come to me by my own amateurish efforts and elementary equipment. The Ministry of Works, with far less to show than we have here, is prepared to employ, for hydro and other schemes in which there is only a transient interest, buildings with plate-glass windows, scale models, maps and diagrams.

and a small library of information. Can we in Canterbury claim to be in league with progress end consider less as good enough? Our City Fathers who built our Museum over its entrance paid their tribute to a Supreme Being. So 1 express the hope that we do likewise for “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”