Sky Highways That Span Cook Strait

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 8 (Supplement)

Sky Highways That Span Cook Strait

Perhaps World’s Finest Scenic Flight

NEW ZEALAND is famous for her scenery, but too few New Zealanders know just how beautiful their country is. There are, for instance, few Wellington people who arc aware that at their doors is one ot the most beautifu sky highways of any country, from the point ot view ot interest and outlook. : One of the finest scenic flights in P f V-k-from Wellington to Nelson across the stoned waters ot Co Strait and the Marlborough Sounds, wonderful inland waterways where ocean and hills seem to have become inextricably entangled.

The silver-winged De Havilland Dragons ot Cook Strait Airways cross the Strait some 16 times daily Ihey rise ove Ronsotai. leaving below them the .mma.se huhdmgs the tah tower of the Centennial Exhibition. They look down tor a moment upon Wellington, the hillside suburbs, the high oflk buildings, the wharves and the harbour. Then thev turn seaward over the turbulent Straw tiou)er bv great winds and shifting tides, its shores strewn with the wleeks

of ships, its waters ploughed in the past by the keels ol Captain Cook, Kupe, the Maori navigator. Bellmghausen, d Crvilie, and famous South Sea sailormen. Ihey see below them the little steamers, the crawling scows, the fishing launches, dwarted into insignificance by the immensity of sea and sky. they see die Tory Channel whalemen going about their hazardous calling travellers in the skies have looked down upon the death-throes of leviathan 50 feet below. _ ... From the swift security of their winged observation cai, they took down at grim Cape Terawhiti, at seagirt Kapiti he island stronghold of the warrior chief Te Rauparaha, at the panorama of coastline curving northwaid to s per ec cone standing pale on the far horizon. Southward they see the wild and rugged ranges of the Southern Alps, the seaward Kaikouras, an endless, jumble of serrate jagged snow-capped peaks ranged along the rim of the sky. „m pr p ‘ The Nelson planes wing on over Port Undeiwood, where British sovereignty was proclaimed over the South Island a deep and beautiful ocean inlet where all the fleets of the worki cou d lie at anchor. They pass above Queen Charlotte Sound, Cooks favourite rendezvous on the coast, and today the perfect cruising ground for holiday yachtsmen. By the drone of then’ em-ines overhead, householders on lonely coves, whose sole co S with civilization is the mail-launch once a week, set their clocks accurately.