A TOURIST PLEASED

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 160, 3 April 1937, Page 11

A TOURIST PLEASED

South African Visitor’s Impressions

“HOSPITABLE PEOPLE” “No country I have ever visited, and 1 have been all over Europe, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, sets itself out more successfully to welcome the tourist and give him a thoroughly good time than New Zealand,” writes Mr. Leslie Blackwell, K.C., a South African Member of Parliament, in a series of articles in a Cape Town paper describing a visit last January to the .Dominion. Mr. Blackwell’s impressions were more than complimentary.

“It is a fact,” says Mr. Blackwell, “that New Zealanders are among the most charming and hospitable people in the world. There is none of that cold-blooded rapacity, that insolent determination to wring the uttermost farthing out of the visitor, which it has been the misfortune of many to encounter in some countries, especially Europe. The tipping evil, curse of European and American travel, is nonexistent; servants of railways and hotels are well paid, and though tips are given and gracefully accepted, there is an entire absence of the hungrily outstretched palm of European travel.

“Hotels, for the most part, are comfortable but unpretentious, meals excellent, and service adequate. The New Zealand railways are slow; the ‘express’ from Wellington to Napier takes nearly eight hours to do the 200 miles. But they are comfortable in the extreme. The South African traveller misses the dining-cars to which he is accustomed. One reason why rail journeys in New Zealand are slow is the frequent stopping for refreshments or luncheon. The latter, served in excellent style at railway dining-rooms for 2/-, is quite the best value of its kind in the Dominions. “To the traveller visiting New Zealand for the first time, without any definite ideas on the geography of the country, and probably with time and money limited, there is no method to approach in comfort, convenience, and cheapness an itinerary planned by the New Zealand Tourist Department. They have reduced it to a fine art.” Not All Praise. The visitor, however, has not all praise for the Dominion. “One or two of the South Island hotels are below standard,” he says. “One which I remember with pain was a double-story wooden building, stark and uninviting, the bedroom with a broken jug and a window that looked over a dreary wilderness of decayed backyards, and —horror to the timid and ungymnastic visitor —a thick knotted rope attached to the window-sill to be used in case of fire as a means of escape.” At one well-known North Island resort, where a site of unique thermal activity has been allowed to pass into the control of commercial enterprise, he continues, the charges for excursions were felt by many visitors to bo unreasonable. New Zealand, according to Mr. Blackwell, has a housing standard far below that of Australia or South Africa, and below that, standard of living on which it prides itself. That almost all its houses, even public buildings, halls, and churches, outside the big towns, are of weatherboard, he attributes to the earthquake peril, but even by weatherboard standards he professes himself disagreeably impressed by the low quality of the housing. , In many parts of the country, particularly on the West Coast of the South island, many thousands of the inhabitants were observed by Mr. Blackwell to be living in tiny dejectedlooking unpainted wooden cottages scarcely above the level of shacks. As for the very large floating'population engaged on public works, their housing conditions, even in the severe winter climate of the South Island, were below the level of the native townships in Johannesburg. Throughout his articles, _ Mr. Blackwell has only enthusiasm for the New Zealand scenery, and from his comments it is clear that at least one tourist who visited this country last summer has returned home very well pleased with his travois and experiences here.