NATIVE BUSH

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 80, 1 October 1924, Page 6

NATIVE BUSH

CHAPMAN ESTATE PURCHASE

ADDITION TO CITY RESERVES,

The purchase of the seventeen acres of native bush by the City Council from the Chapman Estate adds a very beautiful block to the city's scenic reserves, and, furthermore,, will give easy access to Wilton's Bush, which it adjoins, for residents of Northland and Karori. The unfortunate part about Wilton's Bush up to the present has been that those who live merely across the valley have been able to avail themselves of it only after tramping along the road towards Wadestown to the one entrance, with Pr°Tv. Ct °f th? Same tram P h°™ again. The exercise was probably of distinct value, but many did not appreciate it, particularly when afternoons were for one reason or another limited. A well-graded approach from the Wilton valley road at its Northland end n" I?°^ Provided through' the new block. The area contains some very fine forest trees, a, fine as in any block of native bush this side of Waikanae, and generally the growth is quite as attractive as that of Wilton's bush, better in parts.

Another very fine area of native bush not nearly so well known as Wilton's Bush or the bush at Day's Bay, is included in the Khandallah reserve. All vu' } h,f ? t Te about 170 acr<* in the J&handallah Park, the greater part being bushed, though only about 30 acres 5 clothed with really heavy growth. The remainder previously the catchment area for the old Onslow water supply has suffered a- good deal in the immed'il ate past from stock—sure death to native bush-bat even after so short a space as a year or two the bush ie coming back, ihe capacity of native bush to'thus come back, if it is given a chance, is being demonstrated, in fact, in several areas taken over by the council. Nothing has been heard recently at council meetings of the valuable block of bush country offered the city by Mr. W. H. George, but it was not intended when the offer was accepted that the council should immediately set to work to instal a caretaker, to cut tracks, and generally to expend much money in adding another park right .away. When the offer is finally accepted in ' Wai I m~Li afc has not already been done —the Week may carry ahead quietly until! the day when funds and the demand lor still another scenic reserve render its opening more advisable. . The Hutt River frontage, of this block is still not easy of access, bufc pleasant picnic grounds are easily reached from the old Paraparaumu road,' that is, if one knows where the new park'"begins and where it ends. .

It is a noteworthy fact that the public appreciation of reserves, and particularly of bush areas, has considerably increased within the last few years. Whether it is that those irresponsibles who have at times treated bush reserves with the mere edge of respect, have realised that in New Zealand, New Zealand Bush is worth preserving- for its own sake, or whether the seat-back legend as to protecting one's own property has at last sunk in, the fact is that bush areas open to the public are not being stupidly destroyed. r J