ROADS AND-ROADS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 50, 1 March 1937, Page 4

ROADS AND-ROADS

TRANSPORT CONTRASTS

CROSS-COUNTRY MOTORING

PASSING IMPRESSIONS

(By "Autos Redux.")

Travel by motor over long distances has'become such a habit in recent years that one "often ■ wonders what sort of impressions the. motorist gets in his swift career over the countryside. If the road isgbpdi the pace/will usually be too fast for much more than casual glimpses off the track . ahead; ■if the road is bad. the driver's attention is apt to be monopolised in dodging ruts and rocks.or keeping a .safe course where room is limited and corners are blind. As/for passengers, it_ is a common experience to: find them unable to "place" even a town on some extended tour, unless something: has happened there to impress it on their memory. In motoring one sees so much so quickly that the • effort, to "sort ..out the .passing scene,' amid the excitement of speed or the somnolence of late summer afternoons, is often too fatiguing to succeed.. For these reasons point-to-point: ■ motoring,,;when , the points are far apart, is not always the best; way of seeing the country. Indeed; train travel, with its greater sense of security,- spaciousness, and freedom, \is probably still superior for the contemplation of the landscape and the life it reveals through,.the windows of the carriage. .Best of all, if it were still possible in comfort, would be to journey afoot; next best on horseback, and next by push-bike. But motoring is monopolistic in its mastery of the road, and outside the towns one seldom sees now any other form of highway locomotion. Under the circumstances the most acceptable compromise is to amble along in what Mr. Semplo might call an "old crock," but what is far more suitable than one of your modern turtle-top speedsters for exploring backblock joads off the. bitumen in" a trip such as' that described by the writer in "The Post" of February 20. What follows is a few passing notes'on roads and the roadside outlook such as could not be accommodated Within the space of the original story covering the trip. A REAL HIGHWAY, My companion on the four-day tour via Foxton, Napier, Taihape, Mataroa, Karioi, Waiouru, Turakina Valley, Hunterville, Woodville, and the Wairarapa, was a young American, who had already hiked—mostly hitch-hiked— from ''Tew York to Los Angeles,'and in New Zealand from Wellington to Auckland and back similarly. The idea was to take him through country as far as: possible new to him. This included, everything after the first mornifrg to Palmerston North. On the way I had | hoped to show him the view from i the top of the Paekakariki Hill, but with thick mist and drizzle visibility was so low that we just "viewed the mist and missed the view" and passed j over with headlights on. What struck the American most—and he was by no means talkative—was the "one-car bridge" business on New Zealand main highways, something he dic\ not get over during the whole trip, even after the run home down the , Wairarapa from Woodville over what must sure--1; be New. Zealand's "ultimate" road. This genuine highway,-it may be .said in passing, with1 .its. gravel' carpet nested in the bitumch,-seemcd';almost too good to be real/ If.it is to be the prototype of New Zealand's main | highways, then,it is going to cpst the1 country a mint of money to bring the rest of the roads up to the standard, and it will be the end' of the railways unless they are similarly im-i proved. The Rimutaka and Wairarapa i route to Woodville is now far better j than that via Paekakariki and Pal-, merston North (whether by Shannon \ or Foxton), and though the Rimutaka is more than twice as high as Paekakariki—almost three times as high— and though the distances on either side of the Tararuas are, within . a mile or' two, the same,, the Wairarapa route must be nearly- half an hour faster. It is a genuine main highway —the first in the North Island so far as I know. The West Coast route, except for bits here and there, is not comparable, nor is the rest of the road to Napier from Woodville, though some day, and that not so distant, it may be so, for gangs, are at work on improvements in many places, THROUGH INLAND PATEA. Personally, I am one of these who prefer to get off the hard rugh road, where the pace is too fast and driving monotonous, on to the byroad where one can and must go a bit easier, and see the country. Good macadam, if slower, is pleasantur for motoring than the best bitumen and a narrowish1 winding road gives scope for nice management of the wheeL The NapierTaihape road is of this character at each end —for sbout 30 miles out of Napier and less than .20 in from Taihape—half the total distance. Traffic thins out the further one is from each end, until in the central portion a car isa positive rarity. At one spot, about half-way, where ■we stopped to boil the billy, the. little ■ daughter of the neighbouring sheep station came galloping bareback on a big horse from the homestead to - see who were the intruders in her Arcadia. By. and by her mother followed, a picture in the saddle—"the chatelaine of the ranch," my American friend styled her, with notions from Hollywood. The two together, with a background of the green oasis of the home paddocks of the station, nestling among the ruddybrown mountains, certainly looked romantic. Apart from the gatekeeper and his.wife at their little old cottage on the main divide between the East and West Coasts these were the only people and the homestead the only habitation we saw for- over twenty miles. In all that distance there were practically no fences to the road, but at long intervals there were gates across it, whether to mark the boundaries of vast sheep stations or to prevent rabbits straying from one district to another we were, for lack of informants, unable to ascertain. This Inland Patea country, as it is called, seems as sparsely inhabited today as .when the first settlers went in sixty or seventy years ago. Probably it will never be closely settled, but a good through road between Taihape and Napier would not. only improve- access but would give the East Coast, especially when the Gisborne railway line is opened, a much better connection with the Main Trunk, and with Wanganui and the West, via' the Parapara Road, than it has at present via Palmerston North and the Manawatu Gorge. It is a wonder that neither Napier nor Taihape agitates for a de; cent road, but we found very little interest, in either place on the subject. As for the settlers, they probably prefer to be left undisturbed in the profound peace of their Arcady. They must be able to get their wool and lambs out one way or the other—we saw one wool wagon near Kuripapango en route to Napier—so why worry? "THE LAST OF THE SWAGGERS." Between Taihape and the Parapara Road (Wanganui-Raetihi) there is another, but very different, stretch of

country comparatively unknown to the city motorist. When we inquired at a filling station in Taihape for the Turakina Valley Road, we were greeted with the raised eyebrows of amazement, not to say suspicion, as if we had asked for something which is "not done," Taihape being much more conventional than it was iin the free-and-easy, askrno-questions days of the building of the Main Trunk thirty-odd'years ago. Why should any motorist in his senses want to quit the highway for the byway and go the longer way round to the same destination? That j was the attitude in Taihape; so we did not stay there the night, but bivouacked in the wilderness and came back next morning to try again in the daylight. We found then the Upper Tura--kina not unlike Inland Patea, a locality obviously not catering for the exploring motorist. , Some distance down the valley we met "the Last"> of the Swaggers," such was his'-own title for himself. We asked him what had'happened to the others —he was the first and last we saw on the trip. "All dead and gone," he said, "killed by motorists or methylated spirit." Then he told us what a great country the Turakina had once been for the swagger—"the magic ■ circle," he called it, where .for over, thirty years he had "swagged" • the round of the sheep stations and found, -with his mates, unbounded hospitality. All changed now, he said. One of .the great sheep kings, with.'a fleet of fourteen motor-cars or more, .■ he : alleged, had given instructions ■ to his .station cook that hot more than one'swagger was to be served with more .than one meal in any 'one day f and the "rest of the sheep owners ■ had followed suit. 'lAnd they will be flocking to the Coronation," he said philosophically, "to.cut a dash in " London; with • their wool cheques: - As for me, I suppose, one of you motorist' blokes will get me. some day and there will be 'no flowers'." We made him happy with a hal|f-plug of hard tobacco and passed on. It is only along these byways off the beaten track that one gets a fleeting glimpse, in these latter days, of the real New Zealand. To see it properly, as we said before, one would have to pick up the swag and tramp it, and nobody does that now.