AUGUST IN PICTON

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 50, 27 August 1921, Page 9

AUGUST IN PICTON

PORT AND PLAYGROUND

SPORTING, SCENIC, HYGIENIC

[Contributed.] y

Whenever this scribe has been on the Picton steamer, whether Arahura or Mapourika, she always seems to be a fairly well laden ship as far as passengers are concerned, so it is both surprising and regrettable- to hear that the Straits run does not pay the Onion Company. To make a service like this pay,, three things appear to be needed^: reasonable profits, reasonable running costs, and reasonable public support. To take the last count first, there is room for improvement, particularly on the part of the people on this side of the Straits. Every yeac more WeHingtonians discover Picton, and yet the rate ot discovery is not nearly as fact as it should be, seeing that Picton is only four to five hours from Wellington. Ako, though Picton is being discovered as a summer resort, ;it is ako a wintering place, because so many of its winter days are warm, and sunny, and—most important—windless. To the Wellington visi.tor, windless evenings in Picton aid Blenheim—Nelson, too, for that matter— are like balm to the weary. ,

What is about to be written concerning an August day in Picton is intended to give. some idea of the possibilities of Waitohi Bay and Queen. Charlotte Sound in the so-called off season. Given suitable steamer services, Pdcton would be Wellington's finest week-end watering-place. A sojourn from Friday night to Monday morn would be the best possible insurance against 'flu; but the present sojourn from Friday till Tuesday afternoon' (disregarding the Saturday return as too hurried) is not within the convenience of all week-enders. Increasing passenger support in Wellington might bring an improvement of service—provided, of course, that the. running costs and the profits are right. These factors are too delicate to discuss, but no doubt, for the public good, the company will gladly refuse dividends, and its staff will unhesitatingly offer themselves for retrenchment. Granted a noble spirit of selfr sacrifice all round—the said spirit is not Visible to the naked eye, but is said to he discoverable with the aid of the new telescope-microscope , invented in Germany—the industrial-economic problem %vill settle itself. : Steamers will then once more begin to pay, even the Mapourika and ,the Arah/ura. Electrically lighted, efficiently drained, weU-hotelled, Picton provides comfortable accommodation for the week-ender, winter or summer. The Railway Department'; built a fine reinforced concrete raihvay-wharf out to deep water, about half a mile from the centre of the town; and some Piotonites blame the wharf, and the railway for taking the "through" traffic past Picton to Blenheim. This is a narrow view. Every town and district has a bounden duty to facilitate travel, and the town that wishes to arrest the traveller should do., so through its own attractiveness, not through putting obstacles in his road, or through opposing traffic conveniences. Picton has its own' native advantages of climate, mountain, sound, and scenery, to draw upon; and the development of .these will surely attract. Up to a certain point of municipal improvement— lighting, water, drainage, etc.—Picton has done well. But though further conveniences are .pjlanned;on papeir-—foj1 instance, tepid baths—Picion's residents are now accused of a tendency to rest upon their oars, or to back-water. The go-slow element looks to nothing but keeping down the rates. The go-forward element is handicapped by petty dissensions. In. spite of all this Picton cannot bo kept back. But progress could easily accelerated. , ' ''• » » , ■'.» '

Pott Nicholson at its calmest, sunniest; and prettiest cannot present more than a faint resemblance to the still, lak«-like Sounds, with their brandling arms of blue-green watere, landlocked, over-look-edin many-places by sheer hills of great height, partly forested, rugged, cleft with deep valleys. The heights that find reflection in the sea-lanes are ever an imposing feature of ' the picture; smiling in the sunlight, soft in the even-,-ing, solemn in the starry night. This article does not seek to paint the lily, or to pourtray the magic of the Sounds. But the events cannot be envisaged) without a constant conception of the beautiful ensemble. ' ■ ' '

Picton, begun in 1848 by tbe New Zealand Company, ■ five years after the bloody clash with Rauparaha and Rangihaeata at Tua Marina, is the centre of a natural amphitheatre which even partial deforestation has not completely spoiled. Situated on flat and undulating land near where Waitohi Stream enters Waitohi Bay, Picton .commands Queen Charlotte Wound, the naval basin of the future, and is in easy communication with Pelorus Sound. From Picton the visitor can, with advantage, proceed by launch to ever so many bays, scenic and piscatorial, where nothing pf civilisation obtrudes save the occasional house of the Bettler. Sometimes, whes the wind roars in the hill-tops, the deeps are little disturbed; and overcast night* have a happy knack of giving birth to beautiful mornings; contrary to all precedent current on this side of Cook's Straits. ' .

1 On such a morning, picture the launch Mavis! casting off from Pieton, with a fishing 'party variously representative of Wellington, Blenheim, and the local population. She moves, smartly past Mabel Island, the beautiful little green isle planted most picturesquely right.in the mouth of Waitohi Bay, and Earned after the eldest daugHsr of Oolohal Gore Browne. Double Bay, and other bays, come go, until the' launch changes course and enters one of them, the shore-line oi which is marked by ju3t two habitations. Here she commences to patrol backwards and forwards parallel with the shore-line, having'first of all dropped something over the stern. Mine-sweeping? i Oh, no. The something is an oyster-dredge, a home-made concern of wiTe-netting and wood with an, iron frame. It is- hauled < up at the end of each run, and^-what a harvest!/ Besides the oysters, there are dozens of quaint inhabitants of the sea-floor, correctly describable only by a skilled naturalist, which, unfortunately, the company does not include. But_W- —, formerly of Oriental Bay, explains to the ladies the shyness of the hermit crab, which, v/hon startled, bounces back into his shell-home like a jack-in-the-box, and can only bo induced to quit his tenement by persuasive processes that need riot be detailed. (Sufficient be it to state that the usually all-conquering hairpin proves quit* a failure) Then M , also once- a Wellington yachtsman, illustrates the suction power 'of an octopus, even when the tentacle has been long separated from its parent body; and the boys of the party gather sea-eggs, jelly fish, starfish, various forms of crabs, and other mud-dwellers , whoso journey from the depths to the sunlight has been altogether involuntary and equally' perplexing. After the oyster dredging, the fishing, and here the octopus plays a star role —the role of bait. About eight lines,

controlled by ladies and gentlemen, do lively business^ off banks of kelp, with intervals of quiet caused by an occasional go-slow movement on the part of the fish, and other intervals caused by the propeller becoming entangled in the floating weed. Swing of the anchored boat, and tide movements, cause lines dropped vertically to/take on long angles of inclination, sometimes resulting in diverting tangles. Tho excitement of the nibble, the bite, the strike, the rapid haul in, and the eager watch to see whether you have hooked a blue cod or merely the sinker of the lady from Blenheim; the disappointment when a straining line suddenly becomes light; the amateur's effort to unhook cod or tarakihi without damaging his fingers; the courteous assistance and quiet amusement of the professional members of the party—all these are symptomatic of a normal day's fishing in well-selected spots on Queen Charlotto Sound. In the end, the Mavis gathers, in three and a-half benzine tins of medium-sized cod and tarakihi, besides specimens of,the,fish called locally barrara, and the usual smaller rejects. To this harvest of the 'sea, won in two or three hours, add over 50 dozen oysters.

Perhaps the chief drawback 'of seafishing, as compared with trout-fishing, is that there is too much cold boat and too little invigorating movement oh land. Not so, however, in The Sounds. Delightful beaches compel a landing, and hills and valleys invite a ramble. The Mavis lands the ladies at a settler's cottage (temporarily vacant) to prepare tea. A neat cottage with a little garden and a primrose-bordered ■ path, ( beautiful August primroses. So everyone treads the primrose path—the real one, no'substitutes —and what could be happier than tea by the sands .of Queen Charlotte Sound? . '

Twilight, and the home run. A Blenheim amateur steering, while the crew (2) fillets the fish. . Gulls flying in the wake, diving for the cod skeletons. The wonderful August weather at last growing cold. Overcoats, reminiscences, joy over the fact that everybody caught something; deepening night, Mabel Island abeam, Picton lights. This has been a day worth living.

Though most of the deciduous English trees of Marlborongh—including the stately poplar, so scarce in Wellington— have notin early August taken on leaf— the willow excepted—the climate is instinct with spring, superbly heralded by the yellow kowhai. Within the Picton amphitheatre' there aro charming walks, like the walk to the reservoir, and drives, like the drive to Waikawa; but the real roads are the water roads of The Sonnds. Here is a place where health may be procured without drugs, and where the local centenarian. (104) does his daily constitutional, alone and unaided, as an ordinary matter of course. •Happy Picton! May this • small contribution send other pilgrims to share in your beneficence. • ■