QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOUND.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 223, 20 September 1907, Page 5

QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOUND.

LAUNCHING-IN THE SPRING

CAPTAIN COOK'S OBSERVATORY : MOTUARA ISLAND.

(Concluded.) The isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears; and some-

times voices, That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make roe sleep again, and then,

in dreaming, The clouds methought would open,

and show riches Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again. —Shakspere.

Arrived, shortly before noon, off the cleared and 'grassy, slopes on the sunny side of Motuara Island, the Gannet's bow was run a-beach, the tide being out; and the process of tallying and landing the Angora goats was commenced. The custom is to precipitate live stock, one by one, into the water, and then, with the suasive touch of an oar blade this way and that, pilot the swimmers ashore. A four-tooth nannie was tried in this way for a start, and the cold plunge roughly . enforced; but, either from natural stupidity or (more likely) from affection for her kid left aboard, the ewe-goat would not swim landwards, and it was only by sheer force that she was at last sent there. Hereafter the tow : boat was used for the purpose of disembarkation, and the whole flock were in due course safely landed. The incident led to some interesting "yarning" about the landing of live stock through the surf. The skipper of the Gannet told how once a valuable ram, one of several on the way to a run in the Sound, had actually committed suicide, having swum right ashore, and then re-entered the sea and made outwards until, he drowned. The Stock Inspector followed with the narration of an- experience in connection with'.eattiedriving "~ round Pencarrow Head to Wellington from the East Coast. A mob of sixty fat bullocks were being brought into Wellington for butchers' requirements, having been purchased for £18 per head up the line. A herd of wild cattle overhead sent a shower of stones and earth down, which stampeded the bullocks, and they leapt into the surf. Getting out into deep water, the whole sixty of them, now quite beyond control, swam round and round in a circle until " every mother's son of them " (to use the narrator's phrase) was frowned. Skipper Bowden chimed in with a somewhat similar yarn, but it related to calves, and the whole drove was saved through the leader of the aquatic maypole being apprehended and piloted ashore, the others following, as is their wont. The caretaker of Motuara Island, Mr Harvey Turner, made the party right welcome, and before long keen appetites^-a peculiarity of the place —were being blunted. Despite the company of dogs, cats and goats, Mr Turner finds the little island somewhat lonely, particularly in the winter months. He looks forward to the season when the visitors' bell will '"gar him loup " at all times of the day and night. Of a truth, he'll get his fill next summer. But intending sojourner« in the Sanctuary are forewarned to bring their blankets! According to Mr Turner, his activities in clearing shrub growth such as tawhine and red manuka from the goat paddocks have been not too wisely directed. The goats are just now actually suffering for the want of bushes on which to indulge their browsing habits. They are true scrub exterminators, and the most casual visit to Motuara Island will satisfy anyone of this fact. Stinging nettle, however, they will not touch—until the autumn, when they proceed to make short work of it. Mr Turner states that one goat broke a leg the other day in trying to get on a level with a nibble that was out of his reach. Such Ts " the; angora'steal need for harder stuff than grass;

Motuara is an island with a history. When Captain Cook visited the Sound in 1770 Mr Bayly, the astronomer and botanist of the expedition, had his observatory there. Standing upon the highest point of the; island, one obtaiis a most- interesting view. Cape Jackson runs out and away to the northwards; due east lies Cape Koamoru, the northernmost part of Arapawa Island, and off this point stand out clear the White Rocks; the Wellington hills are dimly seen through a bank of mist that slightly tints to the shade of scud as one prolongs the gaze. Southwards, the view embraces a reach of the Sound, the calm waters of which are studded by Long Island, Pickersgill's, and Blumine Island. Westward, Ship Cove lies near at hand, a double bay comprising Ship Cove proper and Cook's Tree Cove. Four little points of land jut out from the shore within the Bay. It is off the northernmost spur of the quartette that it is proposed to set the Cook memorial upon a rock that stands some five feet above the surface of low water.

It has been remarked that the two weeping willows in the Cove seem out of harmony with the surroundings, being the only exotics in sight. This cannot be said of them in the early spring, for they seem to be there just to lend the last artistic touch of lightest green to the background of emerald

As yet we can but nebulously prophesy of the beauty that is to be in the Sounds of Marlborough. Take such a place as the sheltered homestead of Blumme Island. The cleared slopes, meadow green with thriving English grasses, will yet be dotted with English trees like the willow, the wattle, the elm, and the oak. We shall then have more delight than ever in the primeval bush when we sail past it or step ashore to ramble amongst its leafy halls and sounding vaults. But let as have forethought and taste enough to avoid a heterogenous mixtiire of natives and exotios_ Each in its own sphere is exquisite, but, thrown injudiciously together, inharmonious to the eye. To letrnce our steps, we have lunched heartily, cracked our jokes, said good-byes and made wistful promises to return, and at last reembarkrd on the Gannet for Picton. The sun is still high and the air warm, and we make a three-hours' run back to the harbour, calling at Baldick's, Blumine Island, en route. Hugging the shore from Waikawa Point to Bob's Bay, we cannot but notice the little scraps of beauty that mark the Domain. The aesthetic eye hunts not for vasty patches of na- • tire.bush, impenetrable and monotonous. We boast that for the riotioe of the globe-trotter. Rarity is one of the chief attributes of beauty.