A WEEK-END OF SUNSHINE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 71, 17 December 1928, Page 10

A WEEK-END OF SUNSHINE

THE JOY OF LIVING (By a Visitor.) After a week of rain even the pessimists had to agree on Saturday that brighter things were in store. Early on Saturday a few passing showers swept the dismal weather away, and by mid-day many anxious eyes saw pleasant threadbare patches in the dreary canopy of grey that had been their lot for six long days. All Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday morning motorists sped along the Hutt Road to enjoy, away from the cares of office, the freedom and the quiet of the countryside. But motorists did not have the good things all to themselves. Heads erect, leaning forward on the weight of bulging knapsacks, the army of “hikers.” landed from ferry boats on Saturday across Eastbourne way; and undeterred by their dampings of the Sunday before, trod the tracks leading from Day’s Bay to the promised land of Gollans Valley and the mysterious purples of the distant Orongorongos. In little knots of twos and threes they breasted the road leading over the first rampart of the hills, and dipped out of sight into the valleys below. A rifle across the back gave an insight to the week-end of some, and a vision of a “Captain-Cooker” now rooting amongst the fern whose days were numbered. On Sunday morning yachts of all sizes hoisted sail in Oriental Bay. The remains of a spent southerly, tired from its week of wet dissipation, wafted them silently on their pleasures. Little outboard rockets, with much noise, scudded hither and thither the whole day long. Sunshine was paramount on Sunday, filling jaded tollers with added zest. As the day wore on the southerly dropped to a series of zephyr pulses, almost to calms before the night set in. Throughout the day the corporation baths overflowed with sun-wor-shippers. Tiny tots at Oriental Bay rushed bravely into harbour riplets, whilst mothers, armed with wooden spades, offered encouragement and Issued warnings. Lunch in pocket, many a city dweller took tram to the fringes of the suburbs, and spent an economical but a wonderful day amongst the hill-tops round Lyall Bay, and as they ate their sandwiches they watched the heros of the surf display their skill amongst the rollers. White, curved, majestic, these visitors from the ocean slowly toppled over and spent their force in a smother of whiteness on the sands. Cleaned by a week of rain, the distant mountains, a tangled tracery of bush and slips, seemed close; to be touched almost for the trouble of stretching out the hand. All day the sun poured forth encouragement, the ground itself smelt pleasantly of half-dried wetness, the great splotches of green were painted on the distant views.