A HOLIDAY TOUR IN THE SOUTH ISLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume I, Issue 50, 7 March 1879, Page 2

A HOLIDAY TOUR IN THE SOUTH ISLAND.

(By an Excursionist.),

Now that our Southern neighbours can boast of their 450 mile*, or thereabouts, of continuous main lino of railway, which brings tlio fur famed lakes of Otugo within oasy distance of Christchurch, Dunedin, and the other centre's df population, and now that with them Cobbs' coaches arc no lon ger accessories of travel, there is likely to be a far greater number of visitors from the Northorn part of the Colony to these justly celebrated scenes than has been the easo at any previous time j and as somo of our readers may be contemplating a holiday in j the South in the far distant future, a few notes by a correspondent who h.»s recently enjoyed tho trip, may not be uninteresting. The commencement of my journey was not - of the iLOsi pleasant character, us embarked from Wellington at the" Inconreriient hour of midnight on board the Union Co.'s steamer, Taupo,, with the knowledge! that a very heavy sfca wj»s running outside, j 1 will ndt "describe tho trip, but will j merely ask those of your readers who are j very bad sailors t-> recall to their memories | all the agonies of a very rough trip, and to | fancy those agonies enduring for 21 hours, I and then perhaps they will bo abb to form j sime conception of the pleasures of a trip; to Lytteiton. And even when" we" reached | Lyttolton our troubles were not over, for it was Saturday night, the last traiu gone, and tho pi ice over crowded with strangors ; however, fkfter trying fivo d fferent place*, j I manage! to persuade one man to provide j us with a sofa by way of a bed. Lytteiton is a small sea port town at the inner end of a good harbour, and its popu- i latiOn iH composed chiefly of porsons connected with the shipping intero3tt. It is a neat little town in its way, but by no means n desirable place to stay in, so on Sunday morning we took the first train into Cristchurch. O.i Leaving Lytteiton tho railway almost immediately enters the Moorhouso Tunnel, which is tho oldcut and longest railway tunnel in New Zealand, its length being about a mile and a half. On emerging from its wostoru extremity the broad Canterbury plains open before you, and after passing by some pretty country cottages nnd gentlemen's residences the City of the Plains is reached.

Ulirwtchuvoh is a city of considerable ; si*3, and possessing a number of fine buildingS) but as my time was limited I was unable td visit mttny of them. Tho rail* way station, which is a now one, is, so far as my* experience extends, tlie finest in the colony. Tiie arrangement* are .ill on a very extensive scute, comprising immense aoous sheds, engine sheds, workshops, «nd a;jparentlv miles o'" sidings The station house, and otlU-cs nro built of brick, an.l are of sonle\V!mt impairing design, and the two platforms are connected with a substantial over-bridge spanning the intervening line of rails.

Oa entering tho city the principal builling which attracts your attention is tho Anglican Cathedral now in course of erection. The missive pile rises slowly how ev.-r, us the amount of money required for its completion is very large, and not very readily forthcoming, so at tlie preseut time the numbjr of workmen employed on it is very limited indeed. It is a stone structure of course, and when completed will bo an ornament to the town. The Canterbury Museum is well worthy of a visit. Tuis, like all the other principal buildings, is built of a dark description of stone quarried locally, and oruamentod with tho white Oamaru stone. The interior is neat, and decorated with polished native timbers. The collection of specimens is a very fine one, utterly beyond any attempt at description in a puising commentary of tliia nature. The Normal Sc'iool is a fiiw massive building aud very large too, but its interior arrangements did not strike mo as being of tho best description, light and ventilation for instance, appeared to have been sadly neglected. The old Provincial Council Chamber, mw used as a Court House, can boast some very flue specimens of the decorators' art. Indeed, tlie members of the Council in those " palmy days " had a far liner Chamber, for its shw, to air their eloquence in than had their superior Legislators at the Parliament Houses in Wellington. Before I visited Christchurch I was under the impression that of all the larger to.viu in the Colony, Wellington could boast of tho shabbiest Post Office, but iv this respect we must surrender tlie palm to Christchurch. A new Post Offije has been erected however, and is noarly ready for occupation, which is of a less antiquated order of architecture, aud more substantially constructed. Many other buildiugs are worthy of notice, but space will not permit. Christchurch Las one great disadvantage, however, which is its extreme flatness. This Uatnass, together with the very lavish manner in which trees are cultivated within the pity, render a gOoJ view of the place perfectly impossible, and you remain unaware of the existence of many of the finejt bnildings until you get right up to them. The retail shops in Christchurcli are mt equal to those iv Duucdiu or Wellington. Tho city has one great boon in its readily obtainable wat.r supply by means of arte»iim wells, which consist merely of a loujj length of iron pipe driven into the ground tapping some subterranean stream of beautiful clear water.

Express trains now rim between Christeliureli and Dunedin, performing the journey of 230 milest including ten ordiua;y stoppage.* and twenty minutes detention ut Timaru for din.ivr, in a little less than eleven hours, i'heso fast trains are drawn by the newly-imported Aiuorican engines. Tliese engines are extremely pretty to look at on account of the vcty large quantity of polished steel and brass they have about them, and the American decorative taste appears from thorn to ba mure highly cultured than the English. They are much longer engines than tue English ones in mo here, and carry a very capacious tender; and the first impression you receive from them next to their b^.iuty, is as to their apparently great power, but in this respect they are a sad delusion, as although thoy are capable of running over a good straight and perfectly level road at from thirty to forty miles un hour, atill, when the least bit of up hill work comes it tells upon them directly, as on the heavier gradient near Dunediu, which although 1 in 50, are fur excelled in point of steepness on the Wel-lington-Masterton uud Wanganui-Foxton lines, the train composed of live carriages only besides the eugiuo, laboured along at about iivo to six miles an hour, and an J engineer of some eminence in colonial rail, way construction who was riding in the train with ua, seated that ho was confident that Engluh locomotives of the same design would perform double the work, and travel quite tv fust a* those American ones when they are at their best. On leaving Chrii>tchurch tho lino pauses through some very pretty cultivations — nice houses surrounded with bjautiful gardens an! orchard^, and beautiful meiidow lauds with cattle depasturing on them — reminding ono of country homjsteada at homo. And then a little further ttwuy you get into a corn-produsing country and for miles you 869 little olsj thau waving corn, but after pacing Itollesfm Junction Station you corao upon much laud

lying In ita natural etate and covered with dry tussock grane.

Ashburton, übout 60 miles from Christcr.urch, is a thriving little town, ond bids fair to become a large place, surrounded as <^fl it is by a good corn-producing district capable of supporting v lurgo population, and it can already boast of some fine stores and two or three merchants' warehouses, and its interests are advocated by two local newspapers. After leaving Ashburton cultivation get more rare, and the dry tussock grass extends until the sight of it gets monotonous, the farms lying more and nioro scattered the further South you get until Orari is reached, from which place you can see the Geraldine country, and very pretty it lookH after your eyes ultnost ache with looking 1 continually on tho almost bouudless plain. . 'y Not long after leaving" Chrigtchureh you see enow-capped mouutains lying in.- the dim distance, and theso draw almost imperceptibly nearer and nearer until at Geraldine you can see that they terminate in gently undulating hills, divided into paddocks nicely hedged round and in a high state of cultivation, and it is this country that looks so pretty from tho railway. This country soon extends right down to the railway fence, and stretches away on the other side of it, the land changing gradually from a level plain to undulating gronn.l till Timaru is reached.

Of course grain growing is tho staple industry of these plain lands, and very many thousands of acres aro already laid down in wheat, so that labour saving harvesting mach : nery finds a ready sale hero, and that latest specimen of American inventive genius, the Reaper and Binder, has shown this more clearly than ever; us I was informed that 800 of these machines had been sold tliii aeaion already, and these at £70 each represent a capitalisation of a further sum of £36,000.

The rivers of Canterbury present mmc strange features. I wris aware that owing to tho mountainous nature of the country many of our colonial rivers rise and fall both rapidly und abundantly, but this feature is exemplifiid to the greatest extent here, as some of the large and frequently destructive rivers wero porfccilj dry when we crowed* them. The Selwyn, which requires a bridge of some 30 spaus, was a notable example of this } and the celebrated Hakaia, which is crossed by a bridge more than a mile and a quarter in length, was running in about half a dozed small streams in different parts of it* bed. Timaru U a very pretty place— about the prettiest small town wo have seen in the Co'ony. Its buildings i«re largely composed of brick and stone, and some really hand- ; some houses occupy very picturesque I positions on the surrounding 1 Downs, liut | Lima ru has o:ie great drawback — the lack ;of a convonient means of landing passengers and goods arriving by sea. '.fW j landing service is carried on nt present by i means of hage surf boats, which are hauled j out to the vessels anchored in the roadstead, and when laden hauled bank ngaiu right up on the beach, and one can imagine i <vhat a treat this must be when a heavy , sea is running:. Timaru people, however, i have no lack of enterprise, and a very ! costly breakwater, of a desi^u approved ok' by Sir J. Coode, is shortly to bo constructed which it is to b 3 hoped, for the nuke of ul I parties, will answer well.

The ouly place of tiny import-inco between L'iiaaru and the Southern boundary of tho Province of Canterbury is Wairaate, which the main lino passes at a distance, aud to M which a branch lina runs from from Waimate Junction. From what wo could see of it, it appeared to be a town of consider* able sizo, aud it possesses an advantage which wo Northmen value lightly, bu 1 ; which Canterbury people hold in tho hig-hosfc appreciation, viz , an abundance Of good timber. The country between Timaru and Waimato is good and well cultivated, but souMi of Wuiinato to tho old Provincial boundary it gets very stony aud barren. (To bo Continued.)