Where Honolulu meets the Rockies

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 13

Where Honolulu meets the Rockies

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By

RAY PIPER

A Canadian I met recently at Fox Glacier, standing amidst subtropical fem and staring up at the adjacent snow-laden Alps, said: “Goddam, you’ve taken the best of the Rockies and put Honolulu alongside.” This remarkable contrast is no exaggeration.

Just where to begin a description of Westland scenery is a difficult assignment; Let us start at Reefton, a quaint Coast town reached after a particularly easy drive from Christchurch through Lewis Pass and over the picturesque Rahu Saddle. From Reefton to Westport you negotiate the renowned Buller Gorge. Westport has Carter’s Beach, one of the safest stretches of seashore in New Zealand, and thronged with holiday makers at Christmas. The coastal road south to Greymouth provides unparalleled seascapes and passes—Punakaikai, famous for its pancake rocks and awesome

blow-holes, as well as its stately Nlkau palms. Greymouth, a solid business centre lies at the foot of a fem-clad hill, and its outstanding tourist attraction is man-made—and, incidentally, the New Zealand award winner in this field for 1970/71. This is “Shantytown," a fascinating recreation of an early West Coast town. If you miss it, you miss a visual journey back into the authentic past.

Let’s go further south. On a clear day you can look down the coastline and pick up Mount Cook and neighbouring peaks cutting into a clear, blue sky. You should deviate at Kumara and take the side trip to Mitchells, on the shore of beautiful Lake Brunner. On reaching Hokitika you’ll want to see Lake Kaniere and, after dark, the newlydiscovered glow-worm dell at the northern entrance to Hokitika itself. Continuing south, a pleasant side trip can be made to Like Mahinapua. Let’s press on to Ross. If you arrive at the appropriate season of the year, you will drive through a long avenue of flowering Cherry trees. After Ross, you are soon into magnificent fem country and the road through Ferguson’s Bush is lined with beautiful fems and tall majestic trees. Before you reach Harihari, Lake lanthe provides another scenic jewel for an appreciative eye. Harihari and Whataroa

are situated on large areas of open, flat, rich farm land, and here I find myself looking not at the scenery, but at fine herds of outstanding cattle, and thinks in terms of T-bone steaks. A little further south, after skirting Lakes Wahapo and Mapourika, you enter Franz Josef. The drive into the township is truly delightful and the big Tourist Corporation’s Hotel is sited and designed to complement the natural environment. There is the famous little chapel and, of course, the majestic glacier itself and there are beautiful bush walks with gay, plumaged wood pigeons whirring overhead in the archways of native bush.

'lt is only a short, rewarding drive south to the Fox Glacier. The Fox area consists of many hundreds of acres of excellent farm land, stretching from the base of the mountains to. the Tasman shore line. The township itself is set against a backdrop of mountain peaks, rising in rocky splendour from the bushline to the snowfields which perpetually feed the Fox Glacier. Just down the road is

famous Lake Matheson, surely one of the most photographed lakes anywhere. My wife remembers it vividly. While on holiday there I asked her to stand with one foot on a log near the bank so I could take a photograph complete with her reflections in Matheson’s mirror - like waters. Unfortunately the log was not completely at rest, but floating in a foot or two of water. However, I do have a nice snap of my young wife drying a shoe and stocking against a distant background of Fox Glacier, something you won’t see in the tourist brochures. Gillespie’s Beach is only a short side trip and well worthwhile. The rough track I traversed in 1932 has been up-graded to an easily negotiable road. Apart from the interesting seal colony there, Gillespie’s Beach provides a wonderful vantage point for a panoramic view of New Zealand's major southern

mountains—on a clear, winter’s day it nothing less than magnificent. The drive south from Fox to Haast is along almost unbelievably flat terrain and, indeed, it can be covered all too quickly. Between Lake Paringa and Moeraki, I would advise travellers to slow down a little, in order to take in the beautiful banksides of moss. These are greens, greys and reds, and one patch I saw recently had all three colours, with delicate young fems peeping through, creating a pattern to inspire any carpet designer looking for something authentically New Zealand.