LURE OF THE WILD

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 132, 7 June 1933, Page 4

LURE OF THE WILD

HEART OF TIOBDItaD

NEW SCENIC ROUND, TRIP

MANAPOURI-MIDDLE 'FIORDS

: (By E. E. Muir.^ - Here .are. the Alpine ■ landscapes which create A fund for contemplation. ■ : ! .-;■'• ;■■ —Byrou. "Ho, ho!- for- the- South <\vihd! That's the wind for me! " The speaker was. "Los" Murrell the man who did most of the work in finding and cutting out the jiew track from the North Arm of Lake Manapouri to the Gacr Arm of Bradsliaw Sound, and had thus opened up an entirely nCw and most wonderful round.trip of 110 miles in the heart of New; Zealand's Fiordland. The scene was at tho outlet of Lake Manapouri into the broad, deep, and swift-flowing waisiu - ,River, the time 8 o'clock on the morning of March 14; a brilliant suit .was shining down from an azure sky' in tho cast, and the mists, rising slowly on. the 4500 to 5700 ft Hunter Mountains opposite, were being driven north across the lake to the. be.autjful .Cathedral . Peaks , (over CQOOft), which, wall in the lake on its northern side 'and, "were becoming clearer and bolder as their bridal veils rose ■up their precipitous sides and revealed their jagged fops, which bore smajl fields of sjiow. . On, the little jetty bidding;us. farewell were' Misses H. M.F. Alpkandcr arid V. Aliardycc, two "Melbourne ladies, ■ who . had had the honour, .of i being*, the .first to accomplish tlis licw round trip and had just completed it two days before. Ours was thus the second party to go over it, and comprised J. A. Malcolm (District Manager .at.lnvercargiirfor the Tourist Department), A. E. Darling (of Suffolk, England, who . was ;. visiting New Zealand), the writer, and "Les" Murrell (launchman, bushman, prospector, guide, philosopher, and friend—and a merry ono at that!) MOST BEAUTIFUL LAKE IN NEW ZEALAND. The new Tound trip, which lies in the actual centre of Fiordland, and which has to be done in reverse by each successive party owing to tho employment of three separate launches en route, comprises 40 miles of tramping and 70 miles by water made up as follows:—View House, Lake Manapouri, to the head of the North Arm of the lake, 20 miles; mouth of the Frqeman Eive'r to the high camp at Lake Minerva (2400f£), 15$ miles; high camp, via Fowler Pass (3200 ft),

to camp at Bedivere Falls "■ on the Camolot Biver, 8J miles; Bedivere Falls camp to mouth of the Camelot Biver at the head of Gaer Arm of ;Bradshaw Sound,' 5 i miles;" mouth of. Camelot River, via Gaer Arm, Bradshaw Sound, Smith Sound, and Deep Cove, to mouth of Lyvia River, 28 miles; Deep Cove, via Wilmot Pass (2225 ft), to mouth of the Spcy River at .tho head of the West':'Arm of; Lake '■' jlanapouri, 11 mile's? and from.«there'!back to tho,starting point/ 22 ' inilcs —total 110} miles." ■■ '■"'■ " .;■'■. : With MUrroll iiow at" tho engine, now at the tiller, theclaunch sped' out on to tho crystal waters of Lake Manapouri, which were, sparkling in the sunshine, and headed for. Stony. Point, the end 6f s, long, low, and densely woodqd peninsula; Which juts four miles out into the lako from the southern shore and*separates the "big bay at the eastern, end from the remarkable and.wholly picturesque: Hope Arm,v : which thrusts it"self-r-b.ehind. ■;> "Tho. .Monument" (a conspicuous natural feature of the south-western landscape)—into the deep Tcccsges of the Hunter Mountains. Rounding tho point the full magnificence -of-iithc lake broke wholly into view. Truly docs it deserve its title of'■"the most beautiful lake in New Zealand," a land of so many beautiful l^ikcsand of. the world's finest scenery. Covering an area of "56 square , miles, 14 miles,long by eight miles wide at its.broadest part, it is dotted with over a. score of fascinating^.. islands,' large and small, high and low, all adorned with the most luxuriant forest; and on its southern, western, and northern sides is enclosed by 4000 and 5000 fe.ot mountains, 'which, as/if "it would learn thoi*f 'scerots, itj, penetrates in four superb fiords varying ■ from 3J to 6 miles in length., Even with big patches of snow :upon them at. the end of the warmest summer, theso mountains, in myriad shapes, " plunge precipitously down into the lake, and below the •3000 ft line are clothed with the .finest bush right down to the water's edge. On the east side of the- lake lie desolate rolling downs, which, 10 miles out, end abruptly in the Takitimo Mountains, which, bold'and bare, rise in numerous peaks of over 5000 ft. "With a maximum depth;- of,. 1455 feet Lake Mana.pQufi;:is,;the/de;cpest lake in New Zealand,:a^d\iiisX«u'irf ape lies 599 feet abovo sea;'level. V:\rH;-'"isl, SERIES 6F ENTRANCING SCENES. With. the.mists steadily lifting and mysteriously/ vanishing, with tho moun- ■; tain tops. «Bow aIU clear, with glorious new-born white fleecy clouds shot with sunlight floating slowly northwards across the lovely blue vault of heaven, we' were" presented 'with' a wonderful

series of truly entrancing scenes, and sped gaily on past the Hopo Arm to the Channel Islands in tho . centre of the lake, where it narrows into four miles across. Amid the music of bellbirds and grey warblers we landed to tako photographs, and then resumed our journey, making straight for tho massive- wall of Precipice Peak (4035 ft), which descends sheer into the lake at the head of the South Arm. Hounding Precipice Peak on the left iind passing closer in to the Cathedral Peaks towering above, the lake narrows immediately into little more than one mile in width, and after a stretch of two miles blanches off into .-the magnificent West and North Arms, two of tho finest fiords in Fiordland, wholly different in their characteristics and of tho rarest" beauty. THE NORTH AND WEST ARMS. \ltcrin" our course to the north wo steered into the North Arm which goes in behind tho Cathedral Peaks and penetrates three and a half, miles-into the Kepler Mountains, a vast.series of ranges rising into peaks of over 0000. feet, mostly unknown,, unmapped, and uiielimbed. Tho hinterland, of Lakes Manapouri and To Anau, the region is still largely unexplored, and because it is so little known and it is the recoguised home of the takahe or notornis, the huge .mysterious flightless rail of which only four known specimens have ever been secured by tho white man, it has long been regarded as the wildest and most romantic region in New Zealand, and is the 'subject of many a legend. The most prominent features of the West Arm were 'the soaring Turret Peaks so curiously arranged in pairs, and- the strangelooking Loaning Peak, which is such a notable object on the western skyline Avhen approaching Lake Manapouri. It was not without a thrill that wi! gazed down the majestic West Ariii where we were to conic out by the old track from Deep Cove six or seven days later, and turned in to the equally noble North Arm where, wo were- to "go in,'' entering at onco upon the now track, tho cutting of which has made the round trip possible. The ladies had pronounced the trip as being undoubtedly superior to the Milford Track, far-famed as "the Finest Walk ill the World," which they had done a month before. Would wo find it so? It would have to be superlatively beautiful to b& that! ... At the head of thO'North Arm stood the stately St. Paul's' Dome, a peak of about 4500 feet, which has never been climbed, and on its right an, equally imposing and still higher mountain which still awaits a name, and is also nnclimbed. To the right of this, latter'peak we made for the mouth of the Freeman River, landed at 10.45 a.m., tied up the launch, and set out on the double-stage journey of 15 i miles up the Freeman Canyon to the high camp on the shores of Lake Minerva (2400 feet)^-a long day's match over the newly-cut track which

meant that1 we should not arrive at our destination until it was already dark. EARLY EXPLORATION. It did not take us long to'realise that we.had entered upon a veritable sylvan paradise. ... It was all so new1 and yet so old—new in-the sense that the cutting of the irack was only..commenced in October last and completed 'in Jamiary—old in tho sense that tho canyon had been there since'the. beginning of things and had been adorned with the loveliest of beech forests, the creation of countless .centuries of time; and the forest was all so virgin,--so wholly unspoiled, the triumphant expression of Nature's art. Now and. then , a .faint ■breeze the branches of the trees, which, as the remaining raindrops in them caught the sunlight, heliographed their messages of welcome.', ... . . , • - . . . - ■ ' As we trudged along this beautiful mountain valley one thought of the intrepid adventurers who first explored this still-unmapped region and of the men who first "surveyed" and cut this {rack which made our progress' so easy. Until permission was obtained to cut the track through this virgin scenic reserve only three parties had previously been in the valley—Henry Fowler, J. H.'Baird, and H. 31 Wilton, Southland, who first explored the Freeman Valley to Freeman's Saddle and down to the South Arm of Lake. To Anau, in January, 1899; Henry and James Fowler, who spent a week in April, 1902, in-further exploring the Freeman Valley and through to the Camelot- Biyer; and Henry, Fowler and party, who spent another week in .January, 191G, in furthering the original' explorations. They, and "Les'? Murroll and party,' who surveyed and cut the track, had'made this trip possible for the uninitiated like ourselves and all future traihpers and tourists who obey tho call of the wild. > The second article will give a description of tho virgin Freeman Valley from the mouth of the Freeman River to the- high camp at Lake Minerva. , The .tallest Douglas, fir. tree: known west of the Rockies, where the fir is indigenous, was felled within ten miles of the city of Vancouver. Itsheight was 417 feet, with a clear 300 feet to the first limb. At the butt it was 25 feet in diameter, and 77 feet in circumference. The. bark..was sixteen inches thick. The .diameter was nine feet at a point 207 feet from the ground, which. is tho . height of the world's tallest, flagpole, a fir.stick, from British Columbia in Kew Gardens, London. The Vancouver, fir equals in height a, 30-storey skyscraper.