LITTLE-KNOWN BEAUTY SPOTS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 12, 8 October 1927, Page 26

LITTLE-KNOWN BEAUTY SPOTS

HAVELOCK SOUTH AND ROUND ABOUT

(By

Phyllis Gavin,

for the “Dominion.”)

I had heard a traveller compare Havelock South to “Cortina, the gem of the Tyrol,” and I wondered. So I chose the place for a month-long summer holiday, and was not disappointed. The town nestles under more or less wooded hills, and looks out over the waters of the Pelorus Sound. A river meanders down on either side, the Kaituna on the right, on the left the Pelorus. Havelock South is on the main road between Nelson and Blenheim, and is served daily by several motor companies, so is quite get-at-able. And is, indeed, the centre from which you may easily reach several other beautiful places which I shall describe. Within a very easy radius you may shoot deer or goats, rabbits or ducks in season: or vou may fish, and. made handsome catches with rod and line. A fleet of motor launches will take you to any part of the Sound quickly and comfortably-. Parts of these "inland waters” are indescribably lovely. The palm for beauty may, I think, be given to Tennyson Inlet, on the western shore and about twenty miles from Havelock by launch, though there are many places almost equal to it. Arriving there on a sunny morning you could easily imagine yourself the first that ever disturbed its tranquility. You find yourself in a lake-like stretch of water almost surrounded by giant forestclad hills on the land-ward side,, and in front by three green islands, ringed by white shelly beaches seldom trod by hitman foot. A wav in front you see “World’s End.” The virgin bush is sanctuary for a myriad birds that sing and nest and go about the business of their lives ’here undisturbed by manor bov. It is a joy and a marvel to hear them sing of. a summer morning, and if the gods are kind you mav hear the silver chimes of bell-birds floating down from many a half-dark ferny gullv. ... Most of the land about the mlet is reserved so its beauty is safe from axe and fire. It is a place of emerald hills, of sapphire and amethyst waters, and between the two nothing ..but white beaches with “tender curving lines of creaming spray.” 1 Have heard a bcotchman sav it is more beautiful than any of the Scotch lakes, an Italian that it is lovelier than Como. It reminds vou, as in fact, any part of the Sounds does, of Yeats’s “Tnnesfree,” where “you hear lake water lapping and peace comes dropping slow.” You can bask, and dream, and forget the outside world if you want to. Or you mav fish. . . . , There is good fishing. Besides the smaller kinds, kingfish were very numerous there last year. A little lower down, at Maud Island, hutrh hapuka are caught. A member of our party landed one of near 150 pounds. Perhaps I should add that thereafter he was no longer a sane man. His mind, judging bv his talk, ran on fish to the exclusion of evervthmg else . And he did the most extraordinary things, instead of milk, he put lubricating . oil into his coffee. But the people who live on the shore, of these “drowned valleys” . Aon wil

not find any like them elsewhere in New Zealand, but you may think they resemble more than a little the folk of Joseph Lincoln’s Cape Cod stories. The women are fine in a way that is quite their own—generous and brave and hospitable to a degree. The men are part shepherd and part sailor, but I think, more the latter than the former. You will see it in their rolling' walk, and in their far-sighted eyes; and if your ear is quick vou hear it in their speech. They are fine boatmen, weath-er-wise, skilful fishermen, and clever hunters. Out door occupations, the hills, and the sea have left a broad mark on their minds. And they have big hearts. Nowhere will you find more genuine kindness. ' Most of. the scattered homesteads have telephones, and you will see a wireless aerial here and there, but it is an out of the world spot. None better for a summer holiday. • ' But I must leave this place of blue seas and enchanted islands and big fish if lam to tell of other beauties. So to Havelock again, and from there you can motor through Canvastown (no town of canvas now, the name is relic of the past glory of gold-rush days), and along the bank of a limpid stream, which I am told teams with trout, to Deep Creek. Here, among'scenery of great beauty, are interesting remains of the goldseeking operations of the early ‘seventies. If it were not for the neverceasing clatter of the batteries of .the prosperous Golden Bar mine one might fanev the place still peopled by the gay-shirted, queer-trousered, bearded miners of long ago. . But we must on, to the big bridge that spans the beautiful Pelorous River on the main road to Nelson. The wise traveller will have a hamper packed into the car, and will eat lunch at the snot made forever famous by the fact that the Prince of Wales and the Duke and his little Duchess . did likewise when they travelled fhis wav. . A lovely snot it is, too, a grassy clearing in the dense bush, where you may eat with maybe a choir of birds, to smg for vou to the musical splashings of the river. There are trout a’plenty in. the stream. And quite near to the bridge there are safe swimming pools, where onstream and downstream the eye is delighted with scenes of fairy-Uke beauty. A road turns sharply to the leftj after vou cross the bridge, a fair road for the car that will, take you awav beyond the last sign of habitation. Then if you are adventurous and a good walker (which everv .New Zealander ought to be) vou can follow a hilly track through the bush to Murderers’ Rock, a huge moss-vrown stone near which four men were done to death savacely for the void thev carried awav back in the “golden age” of the district, when this narrow track was the only road to Nelson. _ There is fine trout fishing to be had for fortv miles or so of the length of the Pelorus River, and the Rai which joins it just below the bridge provides good sport for the angler.