NEW ZEALAND'S SWITZERLAND

Evening Star, Issue 15432, 4 March 1914, Page 8

NEW ZEALAND'S SWITZERLAND

LAKE WAKATIPU. (Specially written for the 'Evening Star.') By Maud Peacocke. [Copyright.] No. I. Like a great blue jewel in a rugged setting lies Wakatipu, cradled in the long arms of the encircling mountains. Long and narrow, the lake crooks a lovely elbow, as it were, midway; and on this bend stands Queenstown, with its trim piers and its white houses embowered in trees. At Kingston, where the railway line ends abruptly on the edge of the lake, one embarks on the handsome Government steamer Earnslaw, smart in white and gold, which, alternately with the Mountaineer, plies between Kingston and Queenstown. And as with leisurely briskness she cuts her way through the crowding ripples of the translucent water a panorama of beauty and grandeur unfolds itself mile after mile. On either hand great rocky mountains, that in winter bear their crowns of snow with austere dignity, fall away in long, stark slopes, bare almost of bush or tree, to the water's edge, harsher and more grandly forbidding now in their nakedness than when wrapped in the freezing mantle of the snows. But, to break this harsh monotony of rigid rock and crag, here and there occurs a gully in a fold of the hills, green with leafy things; or a leaping cascade, foaming-white or silver-shining, glancing in and out of green thickets, or pouring down the blank face of everlasting rock in a rustling veil of foam and quicksilver, eager to join and lose itself in tho blue waters of Wakatipu. Blue, blue—yes, that is the first impression. Was ever anything as intensely, exquisitely blue as this shining lake among the mountains!' Did ever sapphire burn with such incandescent brilliance of blue flame ? But stay ! Turn your eyes to those still, translucent breadths of unruffled water that seem to dream in the shadow of the rocky bluffs. There is color there to bafllo the brush of painter or a poet's pen ; blue, paling to lilac, opalescent splashes, of pure light, palest jade and deepest emerald, steelcolor and smoky-pearl, the iris on a woodpigeon's breast, and all so subtly blended and yet so distinct it were impossible to say where one sheeny hue melted into the other. And ever as our vessel cuts her gleaming furrow, as a plough turns the sod, out of the ruffled sapphire of the lake's breast, break snow-white bursts of foam, with the gush of miniature waves, and our wake trails away behind white with spent foam. On, on, we pass between the stern, watching mountains, towering up to the blue heaven, above their unwavering images reflected in the still clear depths below. Here and there a tiny homestead- nestles in a patch of green willows, and we see sure-footed sheep scattered on the hills. From one of these lonely farms a boat puts out to intercept us, and receives, stores from the steamer and, what seems more welcome, if possible, the Dunedin papers, on which these isolated dwellers depend for news of the outer world. Now wo are approaching Queenstown. In the distance we see onlv a nest of green trees, which seem to cling about the feet of an abrupt and frowning mountain, but as we draw nearer we see two piers, and white houses peeping out of the verdure. And on our right, rising sheer out of the cold blue waters of the lake, grand, rugged, sublime, looms the long rocky range of the Remarkables, in a jagged rampart of black and bristling crags. The bold and arrogant peaks are unsbftened by bush or tree, or tender green of spring grasses. They rise abrupt and naked, unutterably austere, culminating in a double cone 7.688 feet in height. The harsh face of these serrated masses of towering rock is seamed with a thousand watercourses and crevices, in which lie long wreaths and scarves of dazzling snow—all that is left in midsummer of the hoarv crown and cloak of whiteness which envelop the peaks in winter. Dark, wild forbidding, yet beautiful when the sunrise outlines each purple peak in rosy flame or blazing gold, or the sunset kindles a fire on their dark breasts, until the snows blush rcse-pink as a maiden, and everv hollow is tilled with blue gloom, and lilac lights soften the wild crags, or the moonlight pours its blue-white fire athwart them; and beautiful when the purple-dark cloud masses of storm brcod heavily o'er the peaks, more purple-dark than they, until in the hurtling rush and roar of rain they slowly withdraw as within a veil! Prom Queenstown onward the distance to the head of the lake is 29 miles, and at trie head of the lake is to be seen the grandest, wildest, and most spectacular ?conery that the Lake District affords. Conceive," then, majestic mountains crowding the horizon, peak beyond peak, gleaming with imperishable _ snow, range beyond range ..into the illimitable distance. Imagine silver-white mists ever sweeping over tho fsce of then, rolling low in the valleys, clinging about the mountain tops, rising and falling, dispersing and re-forming, aid the' sudden glory of sun-bursts pouring "like moulten silver through the packed vapors, scattering them into filmy rags of mist, clearing the soaring peaks and laying their Hashing brightness bare against the deep-blue of clean-swept skies ; then, a roaring river, bank-high and foaming, swollen by melting snow waters, sweeping impetuously down the valley between the great ranges—the swift Dart, with a voice of musical thunder, pouring all its wealth of waters, fed by a thousand mountain springs, into the bosom of the lake. Imagine, then, age-old birch forests, clothing the lower slopes of the mouutains; mountain falls, white with foam; scores of impetuous streams brawling and foaming down the valleys, and pouring into tho lake; sylvan bays and miniature lakes, clear and calm as mirrors, reflecting the clustering woodlands. At the season of the melting of the snows Wakatipu rises in a few hours by many inches, and many of the rivers become impassable. A night of warm rain is sufficient, to transform a shallow, chattering creek into a. raging torrent. The Dart, the Rees, and the Routeburn, from their separate sources high up in the snowy hills, com© hurrying down with a joyful noise of waters to feed their great mother the lake ; while the Hollingford, the Eglinton, and the turbulent Greenstone River join forces and pour their accumulated' waters into her lap; and chattering burns and creeks innumerable, and leaping cataracts, hurrying to her, lose themselves in her vaetness. She finds an outlet in the broken waters of the Kawarau Rapids, at the source of the river of that name, which, reinforced by the winding Shotover, flows on to join the mighty sweep of the noble Clutha. A quaint and curious legend is connected with Wakatipu. There is said to be noticeable a distinct throb or pulsation of the waters every few minutes, as of a sudflen rise and subsidence, and 1 legend has it that it is the regular heart beat of a- great chief, who fell living into the lake and never rose again. Well, his is a. vast and glorious sepulchre, under the deep azure--of the sun-jewelled water, guarded by the. glittering magnificence of the snowy peaks, and soothed in his sleep hv the deeD music of mighty rivers. ,