MOUNTAIN CLIMBING MADE EASY

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 93, 14 January 1936, Page 10

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING MADE EASY

Flying Over Kaikouras

KNIFE-EDGE RiDGES AND NEEDLE-POINT PEAKS

Mountain climbing in comfort bus been demonstrated to passengers on the air liners which will be used oa the service between Palmerston North and Dunedin in practice Hights, on which crossings have been made of the Kaikoura Mountains on the inland route between Blenheim and Christchurch.

Borne on the tapering wings of these modern aircraft, pulled by four higblyefficient and powerful engines, the as cent to this high hinterland is a matter of minutes. Low foothills disappear below, and though high peaks rise tn front, the aeroplane rises faster. In a steady climb it surmounts each obstacle and shortly it is bowling alone over a spreading expanse of peaks and ridges and gullies extending inland te where the high peaks make the horizon with the sky and toward the coast, also buttressed by even loftier eminences of rock.

The Kaikoura Mountains are excep tional in serration. In bends and breaks the country is fantastic. Knifeedge ridges stand beside needle-point peaks, some dirty brown and others the hard blue of solid rock, and here and there a few still flaked with light snow, nestling in the cracks of the rocks away from the sun. Only deep and narrow valleys. In which rivers make a precipitous but turtuous fall to the sea, relieve the general appearance of tumbled land mass. The Clarence and the Awatere Rivers twist sharply in corkscrew courses between sharply-rising mountain sides, like narrow silver' streakithrough some unnatural mammoth monuments. Ten thousand feet above sea-levei, as the plane sweeps over the rugged terrain of barren and broken highland, nothing moves except the wind-borne banks of fleecy white cloud, gently enshrouding some of the higher peaks, and nothing lives except isolated patches of trees/ and even these well down the slopes and stunted in their growth. Desolate and deserted, the mountain area is compellingly impressive in magnitude and magnificence, but at once almost frighteningly forbidding. It induces a new respect for those who labour up steep slopes and crawl along narrow ridges laden with heavy packs, and eall it fun. In half an hour over the mountain tops the plane opens to the travellers more scenes, aud better than can be -secured by the mountaineer in days of labour. There is such a profusion and confusion of mountain shape and size in fact, the brain becomes benumbed with the task of absorbing, and only the unusually high peaks and the deeper valleys tend to remain photographed in the memory amid a general recollection of a mass of ruggedness and immensity. The machine coasts past a few high tops and speeds above scores of lesser summits, while inland the ridge of the main range runs, with a light covering of snow on every eminence. For over half an hour the passengers ore above this strange new world, while the plane continues as steadily on its course as though flying over sea. In the cabin it is cool but not cold. Even if it were there is a heating system to be turned on for comfort.

Flying toward Blenheim, ■ tbe machine begins to descend as tbe Wairau River opens out into a .spreading valley, and soon it is passing over flatfarm lands around Blenheim, headed straight for the Woodbourne aerodrome. Going to Christchurch the down country of North Canterbury lies abreast of tbe foothills of the Kaikouras, and the machine passes over the Cheviot Hills before reaching the plain round Rangiora and Kaiapol and passing across Christchurch to Wigram aerodrome. Although in passing the Marlborough Sounds in clear weather passengers see hill country that is impressive and speeding over the Canterbury Plains on a fine day ride abreast of the whole lino of the Southern Alps with Mount Cook showing above the main range, the flight over the Kaikoura Mountains is even more memorable. The inland route between Blenheim and Christchurch will be used when the weather is more suitable that way than round past Kaikoura, when the machine flies much lower along the coast of Canterbury. OFFICIAL OPENING For the official opening of the service at Miison aerodrome to-morrow, special trains will run from Wellington to Palmerston North. Trains will leave at 8.18 a.m., 9.20 a.m. and 9.55 a.m. The return train will leave at 5.35 p.m., stopping at Shannon, Levin, Otaki, Paekakariki amt Johnsonville, arriving at Wellington at 8.37 p.m. A programme of flying displays and parachute descents has been arranged. Tlie Hon. F. Jones, Postmaster-General, will perform the ceremony of christening the machines and declaring tlie service open.