SURGE OF TOURISM

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31680, 16 May 1968, Page 16

SURGE OF TOURISM

Since the opening of the Haast Pass before Christ* mas in 1965, there has been a steady increase in the flow of tourists through Westland National Park.

The park offers visitors some exciting natural spectacles which have been described as “the filling in a sandwich” of magnificent bush scenery. The two glaciers Franz Josef and Fox, must rate among the easiest in the world for viewing access and during the past two years have become the subjects for many thousands of amateur photographers.

Harriers have run through the park, a cyclist has passed by the beautiful lakes on a round trip from Canterbury, hitch-hikers have willingly walked along the road edged with subtropical bushlands rather than accept a trip by car and thousands of motorists have travelled the road. The rise in tourism has been remarkable. Since the new road was opened there have been almost double the number of people through Westland National Park in the first year. Figures for 1966-67 show that 210,000 visitors called, 93,000 more than the previous year.

The area has been visited since Abel Tasman’s time. He recorded while he was off the West Coast in 1642, that he had “seen a land lifted up high.” The next visitor was Captain James Cook, who sailed in the Endeavour in March, 1770, from

Fiordland to Cape Farewell He kept well off the shore but was able to see the white mountain tops intermittently through the sea mist. In 1859 two young men, Francis and Young, sailed from Lyttelton in the Mary Louisa to inspect the West Coast from the sea as part of their search for grazing land. They were apparently the first to record an impression of the glaciers. Recorded in their log for June 14 was “at noon abreast of Mount Cook, close in shore, we could see distinctly an immense field of ice, entirely filling up the valley formed by the spurs of the twin peaks and running far down into the low land. It was pale green in colour and appeared to be quite a mile in width towards the end of the valley.” The park was formally constituted in March, 1960, and is unique in the history of national parks in New Zealand, for it extends from sea-level to a height of 11,475 ft and in its area of 210,257 acres

contains high mountains, snowfields, alpine grasslands and herb fields, forests, lakes, waterfalls and rivers. It incorporates two of New Zealand’s leading tourist centres at Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers and is traversed by the main highway which connects Westland and Otago via the Haast Pass.

Travelling south, the first sights of Westland National Park are Lakes Wahapo and Mapourika which, with their surrounding bush, make up the northern section of 9000 acres. Franz Josef Glacier is six miles farther south and another 15 miles south through bush covering ridges and valleys is the township of Fox Glacier. Within the area there are 50 named glaciers, three main rivers fed by melt waters from the glaciers and numerous tributaries. The largest lake in the park is Lake Mapourika between Whataroa and Franz Josef, and the main highway skirts its shore. The outlet of Lake Mapourika is the Okarlto River which flows down to the large Okarlto Lagoon at the sea coast The most famous of the Westland lakes is Lake Matheson, which reflects a mirror image of Mount Cook and its neighbouring alpine peaks. It is only a few miles west of Fox Glacier township. All the lakes lie in depressions left as the ice retreated and are sufficiently remote from the main rivers not to be filled with alluvium. Most of them are partly surrounded by magnificent bush country and in the frequent calms, all provide a perfect reflection