ADVENTURES IN SEARCH OF MOUNT COOK.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 7561, 28 May 1885, Page 5

ADVENTURES IN SEARCH OF MOUNT COOK.

A chatty and agreeable -writer under the initials of J.G.D. haß been lately describing a holiday trip through New Zealand in the columns of the Argus. Arrived at Dtmedin, he made it his headquarters from which to explore the country round :—. The first of my trips (he writes) was my expedition in search of Mount Cook. This seems to imply that the mountain was lost, but that is not my meaning. I only wanted to see it. I asked a Dunedin friend how this was to he, managed. " Nothing simpler/' he replied. " Take the train for Christchurch, and when you are just beyond Timaru look to the left, and there you are." So I took the train, and sped northward by;the express, at a rate of rather more than 15 miles an hour. Past Blueskin, where I almost wished the train would &o slower, as we rushed round the point on a narrow ledge, with the sea boiling beneath. Fast farm and station, plain and hill; past . Oamaru; past well-tilled fertile volcanic rises that recall Earrabool; past Timaru. ■ And now, I thought, the time has come. I looked to the left, and there, far away in the distant heaven, half hidden by the gathering clouds, I saw a snow-capped range. "At last," with reverent eyes, I "gazed at the far-famed.mountain. Emotion - found its vent in song:— " Mount Cook is the monarch of mountains, f They crownea it long ago; But whom they got to put the crown oe, | I really do not know." . I was so delighted with this poetic effort, it had such a Byronio—albeit Smithic—ring about it, that I repeated it aloud, pointing to the mountain as X did so. " That ain't Mount Cook," said a rough voice behind me. :It was the guard, who had come on to the platform unperceived. " You can't see him from here." " But I was told you could. I have come, here on purpose." " Well, on a very clear day, if you know exactly where to lookout, you might see him for about five minutes ; but you couldn't' to-day." My poetry had been wasted on a nameless range.

But I wasn't to be beaten so. At the first stopping-place I determined to get some information. • "Guard, could you take a little refreshment?" "I could, sir, only my inspector is on board; but I could drink your health another time. Thank you." "Where should I go to see this blessed mountain ?" " Pairlie Creek is the railway station nearest to it. You had better go there." I went. As we were approaching the station I confided to a bucolio fellow-pas-senger that I was going to see Mount Cook from Pairlie Creek. He smiled, and said, " You can't, for the same reason that the Spanish fleet could not be seen; it's not in sight." Noticing my look of disap-. pointment, he added, "But you go to Silver Creek; that's your place." I went to Silver Creek. I walked there against a head hurricane. I inquired for Meunt Cook. No Mount Cook. But I was told to get a horse and ride through Burke's Pass to Lake Tekapo, and then I would be all right. I got a horse. A sudden thought struck me as I was ahout to start. -"Can I see Mount Cook from Lake Tekapo?" "Oh, dear, no. But if you get another horse and a guide there, and go to Blenheim, and if the weather should happen to be fine"—This was too much. I turned back without a word. I never saw Mount Cook. Mount Harris is its proper name. "I don't believe there aint such a mountain." *.

It was on this trip that I saw the celebrated Canterbury Plains. For a couple of hundred miles the country from the mountains to the sea, a distance of some fifty' .-miles>~is-oneTinbrofcen level, of waterworn shingle, more or less lightly covered with soil. Here and there a mile-wide rivej> bed, with a network of rapid, shallow rivnlets on it, is crossed; and you can see with your own eyes some portion of the process by which the great plains were formed, I have mentioned that I passed through Oamaru on my way north. I »vas delighted with it 3 appearance. The white, marblelike stone of which the town is built, and the form.;of the buildings themselves, which harmonised with the stone, gave it, to' my eyes, a classic air. I grew qurfe excited. Surely that sea is the blue iEgean. Pan js, not dead. It is ancient Athens that I behold. Here is the Temple of Victory, " and there Athena's altars rise; that mistshrouded height must bo the Acropolis. As the train whirled me by a vision of such bright beauty lingered with me that I determined to visit the town as I returned. In an unhappy moment I did so. "Whether it was the, weather, which was .detestable, or my liver, or my temper, I don't know, but everythingwas changed. The Parthenon was a wool store with greasy loafers hanging round; the Temple of Victory a bank with clerks behind, the counter;' the Acropolis an ugly hill crowned by a wooden shanty. The bleak, wide, empty streets affrighted me. I shuddered and fled to tho railway station.