FROM THE WINDOW.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 112, 7 November 1908, Page 9

FROM THE WINDOW.

* ALONG THE MAIN TRUNK LINE. AN IMPRESSIONIST SKETCH. (By Telegraph.) (From Our Special Keporter.) AUCKLAND, This Day. A shade beyond 10 o'clock the epochmaking journey was begun under happy auspices, with Auckland 426 miles ahead. Cutting out the pace at a trifle over the two-minute gait we crept up to Johnsonville and past, slipped through the cutting and black-mouthed tunnels and dashed into Paekakarilci at 11.7. Here a tired engine was turned off and a fresh young thing took up the running approaching midnight. When the doors had reaped io bang after tho rush of supper-seekers %, and the weary were at rest_(or trying hard in all sorts of attitudes, in all kinds of gear) the travellers — the majority of them — settled down to think commiseratingly of home and snug sheets and hopefully of the now famous viaduct of Sir Joseph and the hammer that was to strike such a blow for posterity. Beyond Ohau — where a stop was made to settle a little differonce that had arisen between the waste and the oil in a hot-box concerning the rate per minute — the furnace fire flared and the miles slipped behind fastei than ever. At Longburn another hot-box misconducted itaelf badly, and its silence was more fragrantly speaking than words. Here, too, the wind wakened again, Bearing out of the north and hung with mist. Swinging along, the lights of Palmerston North rushed towards the reckless, rollicking engine. THE WEARY DISTURBED. A fresh invasion occurred here, feet clattered, doors banged, ana shadowy cloaked figures turned over m great remonstrance. Then out again, and after that, as Tennyson said, "the dark." At Mangaweka very early, and at Taihape later, dawn looked over the eastern ridges with a drab eye taut looked as though it had been up late. Day came m miserable and slatternly, her attire dishevelled and rain on her face. MAKOHINE MISSED. In th« blind hours Marton Junction had slipped by and we had sailed over the Makohine viaduct without fear, though over the rail inoaut n fall of 238 feet. This, one of the most difficult of engineering jobs on the Main Trunk, cost something over £70.000. \ sight of this we had missed, and the gawky, lean timber on the Taihape flats 3een on a dirty dawn did not offer compensation, but the valley of the Rangitikci—^burnished with the suo and in all the blazon of mid-spring — was for our delectation. A LASTING IMPRESSION. Long vistas ol rich, cool green of all shades, lines of massed crowding foliage running back -to a hilltop and over sheer slopes lush with tender undergrowth, and often' in the. quiet vales flashes of liquid living silver — such and ; more made Rangitikei valley i lasting | and a pleasurable impression. As for some treacherous looking papa "slides," they are here dismissed with mere mention Beyond Taihape piles of newlysawn timber mako yellow patches upon the landscape. Sawmills are as prevalent about here as land agents in the Dominion. For miles clean now weatherboard dwellings are springing up like mushrooms. A HOWLING WILDERNESS. The climb to Waiouru — lonely, windswept, depressed Waionru — is scenically not vrorth the trouble. The country on either side of the way up looks distinctly/ashamed of its dismalness, as it deserves. Over 2600 ft above sea-level the settlement (if there is one) is a building or two dropped down in a howling wilderness of tussock. This Waiouru is a good place not to spend a holiday in. , A THANKFUL CONTRAST. A run down to Karioi and up some grades Ohakune is set down, and is a thankful contrast. Nestling on a basin surrounded for leagues by millions of feet of mill timber this new-born settlement, where a dozen or fifteen houses are in active process of erection, seems to grow while one waits. On Thursday the township gave its people a holiday, and a train to take it to see the grand doings at Mangonui. # Between Ohakune and Mangonui the track slips into tunnels, dives round curves and crawls between deep embankments and over Makatote to th.c meeting-place of the north and south railheads. FINE VIRGIN FOREST. Along the famous spiral to Raurimu — whose roofs are seen long before the township itself is reached, and beyond, within not a great distance of Taumarunui, is probably as fine virgin forest as exists anywhere in the Dominion. Such density of under-growth and long timber, such towering giants, such opulence of verdant vegetation it would be hard to equal. Yet, despite the grandeur of it all, there was hardly a tree for miles but what was crusted to its topmost branches with hideous animal-like vegetable deposits that crowded from top to bottom with these pendulous and clinging excrescences, but, apart from all this, the majesty of the timber-belt is inspiring. So down to Taiunarunui, through the heart of the King Country — a series of long rolling downs uninteresting and uninviting — and after that it is only Auckland.