OUR NEW ROAD

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 103, 28 October 1922, Page 11

OUR NEW ROAD

IN AKATARAWA VALLEY

AN INTERESTING EXPERIENCE

MOTpRING THROUGH A GALE.

(By J.G.S.)

Many motorists are awaiting the opening of the Akatarawa-Waikanae Toad. Few of them are aware that it is already fit for. use, although'a bit rough and calculated to punish tires not a little. As I have just been over it in a | five-seater touring car, our experiences may be of interest. Labour Day, as may, Ibe remembered, sandwiched a day of I roaring nor'wester between two most beautiful days. Although morning brought blazing sunshine, the harbour was lashed into angry turmoil, the wind screeched in the telegraph wires, and the* early part of our journey, bumping along out to Trentham as a unit in a procession of duskraising racegoers, was unpleasant. There, however, we left the crowd, and thereafter had the road much to ourselves. The beautiful Hutt Valley has of late been looking its very best. Everywhere is profusion of bush greenery. The hawthorn hedges are now a blase of sweet-scented blossom, laburnum is just getting into bloom, the wayside gardens are gorgeous with manyhned azaleas and rhod.odendrons. IN A MOUNTAIN GLEN. Beyond Maori Bank we swung off into the Akatarawa Valley, and very soon the scene changes. This valley is a typical mountain glen. It is narrow, and on both sides the hills soar high—disfigured, alas, for the most part by the ruin of burned bush—falling steeply to the stream winding and fretting below. The road is cut on steep slopesxhigh above the stream; sometimes descending to- green pastures with cottages and col-' tivation, then climbing again. As tie car rolls onward the hills grow higher and steeper, the road more and more stiff on the acclivity. The gullies are full of ferns and frondage, and the stream has taken on a more. impetuous character. Looking up the valley it at all times looks like a corridor into mysterious mountain regions; but alas, to-day gloomy clouds obscure the higher levels; the wind buffets us fiercely, and ahead amid further hills there is promise of rain. Wha,t a pity we had not come yesterday. They have been widening the road in places, and its whole surface is bestrewn with a liberal coating of rotten rock, which, whilst' it does not bite your tires like blue metal, is quite sufficiently deadly when bumped over for hundreds of yards at a streitch.CROSSING THE STREAMS. Presently we pas 3 the last farmlei. hitherto the limit of our expeditions, and clearing gives place- to untamed nature and bush. Although stunted at .first we soon reach its originrJ splendour as the road twists arid climbs deeper into the wilderness. Upward and onward it goes at a fairly steep gradient, edging past jutting cliffy corners, swinging round deeply-embayed recesses. About 30 miles out from Wellington we reach the only real obstacles on the route,, namely two streams that are not yet bridged, and which'could be formidable in wet weather. The first bridge is partly built—a solid timber structure; but until it is finished you have to drive your car for about fifty yards down a rough, narrow, rocky cut (the 'steepest and roughest I have met in motoring). Better turn yonr passengers out to walk. At the bottom you turn sharply to the left in the stony creek bed, and in a few yards reach the ford. The crossing place is a made one, and you cannot miss it. We found the water only a few yards wide and it reached to the wheel caps; but close alongside it was three of four feet deep. A steep pull out brings you within a. quarter of a mile, to the second stream. Men are at work on the concrete foundations for the bridge. This creek we found smaller than the first one, but swifter and deeper, and you bump into it heavily and make a steep IN THE WILDERNESS. After this is plain sailing right into the wilderness. The road continues rough with new metal, and is in places fairly steep. It abounds in hairpin bends and sensational corners. Nearly everywhere the hillsides are of great steepness, and as you rise the gorges deepen beneath, giving glimpses of tortuous streams far away down deep fern-filled gullies. Had the day been fine I could have told of bird music and water music, of whispering breezes and shafts of sunshine; as it was, there was only the roaring of the nor'-wester, the grey mists capping the hills, and the sea-fog flying past in tattered curtains. Fortunately there was no rain. All around was dense green foliage. It arches overhead, it climbs the hills above you, it fills the glens below. Dense, dark, impenetrable silent bush. Greens of every shade at this season splashed in every direction with gorge-1 pus white clematis.' Never have I seen such profusion of this beautiful parasite. Aloft, on opposite slopes, it often gleams in the gullies like the spray and foam of a waterfall. Doubtless later on in the season its place will be taken by the scarlet blossoms of the rata. So steep are the hills and so devoid of ledge or level that the canvas shanties of the men who are making the road are often built actually on the road itself. Not infrequently in such places it was a tight squeeze for the car to get through. Numerous small slips—rocks and earth and timber—-have come down, narrowing the track precariously. For the most part, however, outside its extraordinary convolutions, this is of easy grade and well laid out, and you could pass another car without difficulty. Whilst the workers are on the road as at present, these slips are soon shifted, but it will be a long time before. the passage is free from numerous chances of a hold-up. A big crowd of men it; presently on the job. Many of them are husky fellows ; but there are numerous individuals (unemployed from the cities doubtless) evidently not bred to pick and shovel work. They are housed in canvas shanties, mostly adorned with homemade chimneys. ' Newspapers seem to be their chief desiderata. A car laden with light literature .would have a warm welcome. VIEW FROM THE SADDLE. Two and a half hours out from town, or at about 37 miles, we reached the saddle, which they say is about 1700 feet above sea level. There is a wonderful view. You are high up among forest-clad hilltops; and in a westerly direction deep down below are seen the green flats of the Waikanae Valley with farms and cottages and encircling foothills, and —beyond—the Pacific thundering on the beach.; It is still nine miles to Waikanae. At first a repetition, on a downward grade, of the bush and rocky road that rails for careful going; then bare hillsides and a clay road that might require the use of ch.rlns after rain; then a capita! road through paddocks and plantations thresh the quiet little hamlet of Beikoranfi; and so to the .main north road at beautiful [Waikanae, srhich is

just over 40 miles by road and tail from Wellington by the main route. Our return was made over Paekaka* riki Hill and by Porirua and Ngaio, a total round of close on 90 miles. Xho Paekakariki Hill and, Horokiwi Valley have long been the scene of the labours of large gangs of men, who have mada . of the famous old road a veritable highway. Much of its surface is still very rough, and the scars on the fair face of Nature are still disfiguring; but tiiria will heal them; and when the similar labours on the road over the Rimutak'as are completed , (and great • progress has been made), the two outlets from our city will be brought to such a stags of comfort and safety that any careful driver can negotiate them day or night in almost any weather. The route I have described forms a connecting link between these two north-leading highways. It will never be a commercial link. It is too steep and tortnous; but as a scenic drive it •would be hard to beat, and the whole round of 80 or 90 miles is quite s, pocket edition of tha scenery of our Dominion.