A Hill-top Drive Of Remarkable Scenic Charm

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 14 (Supplement)

A Hill-top Drive Of Remarkable Scenic Charm

Banks Peninsula Is Rich In History And Beauty

THE countryside of this Dominion provides for the motorist many glorious drives through scenery of transcendent loveliness. Her deeply indented coastline, rugged hills, dear atmosphere and bright sunshine combine in memorable views from hilltop vantage points. Her ancient history and Maori traditions lend atmosphere to the roadside halts. . Canterbury is particularly rich in such drives, and. in particular, the strange volcanic crater Banks Peninsula, taken by Captain Cook for an island, is rich in beauty and story. From Christchurch motor omnibuses daily traverse the Port Hills on sightseeing tours, and no Wellington visitor to Christchurch should omit to make this trip. Travellers from overseas claim that it can take a place among the world s finest scenic drives. From Christchurch the road runs past the Heathcote estuary to the seaside suburb of Sumner. It passes the tall pinnacle called today Shag Rocky and formerly by the Maoris Rapanui, after one of the native names for far Easter Island in the Pacific, brom the sea this rock resembles the prow of a Maori war canoe. The road climbs 1600 feet to Mount Pleasant. From the summit, looking northward, may be obtained one of the finest views in the Dominion. At one s feet the hillside and the winding road fall steeply to the wide mudflats and shallow of the Estuary, the curving dunes of New Brighton, and away beyond the broad plains, extending mile after mile to the brown

foothills and the lofty chain of the Scuthein Alps, white peaks of eternal snow. The coast sweeps in a wide curve to distant Mottmau; the Waimakariri River sprawls across the plains like a silver serpent; away on the horizon, where the land and the sea and sky meet, stand the great sentinel peaks of the Seaward Kaikouras. which 'Captain Cook nicknamed "The Lookers-On.”

As rite road runs along the summit it looks down from time to time into landlocked Lyttelton Harbour, a great volcanic basin of bro w n hills containing blue arms of skyreflecting water. It skirts clumps of native bu s h growing in th e valleys. It comes, at the foot of Sugar Loaf Peak, to the Sign of the Kiwi, picturesque teahouse of stone, with a quaint swinging sign and a Shakespearean inscription carved above the porch. From the "Kiwi”

the road win d s cl o w n through

pleasant parks and reserves to the Sign of the T'akahe —a remarkable stone building, noted for its interior carvings and armorial bearings of special historical interest in this young country. Thence the road descends through the hillside suburb of Cashmere, past the parks and colleges of Christchurch in a pleasant drive back to Cathedral Square.