New Zealand’s Face Is Truly Her Fortune

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

New Zealand’s Face Is Truly Her Fortune

Scenic Charms Draw Tourists From Far Lands

GREAT liners berth at Wellington and Auckland two and a half million tons of shipping everv vear. They bring New Zealand her machinery, textiles, foodstuffs, they tJ<e away the produce of field and farm. They carry, too, a host of passengers, host that grows grcatei. evei y year as more and more folk,.sick of the sophistication and hustle and unrest of the ancient, troubled countries, come to take their pleasure m our care-free, beautiful Dominion.

What is it that these people come so tar. pay so much to see? What has New Zealand that othei countries lack? She has the charm of a countryside a people, and a natural beauty not yet so fat exploited as to cloy the fastidious palates of pleasure-seekers She is still sufficiently remote from the world s centre to be able to treat tourists as intelligent individuals seeking to see and to learn something of this new Dominion, instead of being regimented and conducted and “guided” from stereotyped and over-publicised beauty spot to beauty spot, as is the way m Europe. She possesses, moreover, exceptional scenic charm, a little of the charm of almost every other country packed into a small space. Her variety is her charm. In the far north she is sub-tropical, in the south sub-Antarctic. On the rocky shores of Southland and South Westland, spraydrenched by the wild seas, nest the penguins, bleed the fur seals. In her deep fiords, sky-piercing mountains fall sheer into water so deep ships can anchor a biscuit-toss from shore. Eternal snows glitter on the mountain peaks of the Southern Alps, Cook and Tasman, Sefton and Arrowsmith. Rivers of ice flow down the deep valleys of the Fox, Franz Joseph and Haast: flowering trees scatter their petals on the cold seracs, and where the ice ends the forest starts. The forest is full of mystery and beauty, the deepest quiet and the holiest loneliness on earth, broken only by the kea parrot and the wi d deer, the shy kiwi and the rare takahe, of which only four have ever been seen by man. The mountain tarns are bordered with scarlet rata blossoms, the mountain streams with golden kowhai, and their pebbles are mingled with greenstone and gold. They burst through deep and sombre gorges to meander across fertile coastal plains. In the north are the volcanoes, sleeping Egmont’s solitary cone, Ngauruhoe smoking through the snows that cloak the crater, White Island poking a smoking chimney through the blue, placid waters of the Bay of Plenty, Rangitoto standing extinct and wooded at Anck-land’s front door. In the north are the hot springs, "eysers, mud-volcanoes of Rotorua, bubbling an< j steaming and quaking in the sulphurous atmosphere of Hades. There, in beautiful Rotomahana lake, trout swim in cool water at one end, and at the other merry plump Maori lasses cook their vegetables, wash their clothes and their half-naked, happy children, in water heated over subterranean fires.

In the north is the great forest of the Urewera, cast like a blanket over the rolling hills, misty and mysterious, haunt of the shy kiwi and the mournful owl. In its heart the loneliest village of New Zealand sleeps at the foot of the sacred mountain Maungapohatu. In its heart is Waikaremoana, the Lake of Rippling Waters, rich in legend and history. The north holds, too, the cavern of Waitomo, where stalactite and stalgamite glimmer wierdly in the faint light of glow-worm lanterns, along a subterranean river. And in the farthest north, beyond the Bay of Islands which is also the Bay of Swordfish, and beyond the Waipoua Forest of giant kauri trees, at the land’s end is Te Reinga, lovely bay where the spirits of dead Maoris slide down the root. of an ancient, gnarled pohutukawa tree into the spirit world.

Such are a few of the Dominion’s charms. What story and what history enriches every cove and bay would take a volume to relate even in brief. Fascinating Maori traditions, tales of settler and whaler, missionary and cannibal chief, such strange and interesting local industries as fossicking in the sand-dunes for gold, beachcombing for ambergris, make travel in her out-of-the-way places a memorable adventure. Her smiling skies promise the tourist a favourable opportunity of seeing her charms, picnicking and bathing and boating in her great out-of-doors. The famous hospitality of her people ensures a kindly welcome to

the traveller alone, but far from lonely in this farthest outpost of the Empire. New Zealand is fast becoming appreciated as a tourist resort. She is taking, in these, days worldwide travel, the place formerly occupied by Switzerland and the Tyrol as the playground of the world. From 15,000 to 20,000 tourists visit New Zealand yearly. Most of them are from the United Kingdom,’ Australia, and the United States,, but yearly a larger influx comes from the East —British civil servants or merchants from China taking furlough, AngloIndians anxious to try New Zealand's fishing. The number of sportsmen who come to New Zealand in connexion with fishing, shooting, big-game fishing, and field sports is about 550 a year. All the rest come to look at the scenery, rush at high speed from one end of the country to the other, or drive briskly through the central portion of the North Island alone, and go away, according to tourist convention, fully qualified to answer any and every question concerning this Domin-

These figures include 5000 or so passengers on tourist liners visiting New Zealand, many of whom make hurried two-day trips through the North Island, visiting the chief scenic resorts. It is estimated that the money brought into circulation in New Zealand by tourists amounts to about £1,200,000 a year. Tourism is obviously an industry worthy of encouragement. To develop it yet further, the Government devotes a complete department to tourist publicity and organization, including the provision of the usual services of travel bureaux throughout the world. Scenic films and display material are produced by the department’s studio at Wellington for distribution throughout the world. Representatives of the department are established in London, Canada, the United States, and Australia, to handle publicity and the booking of tours in those countries. In addition, steps are being taken to provide modern and pleasant accommodation, swift road services, and smooth highways, at all places likely to become popular as scenic and tourist centres.