A WINTER'S DAY ON MOUNT ARTHUR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 28 September 1907, Page 4

A WINTER'S DAY ON MOUNT ARTHUR.

A HOLIDAY TRAMP VROM NELSON. (By "T. He.mfield.") I "Come up Mount Arthur? " i "No thank you." j "You'd enjoy the trip." , "Humph," 1 said doubtfully, glancing across the bay at the snowy peaks rising 6000 feet into the cloudless sky. > '•But"— ! A week later, with two other, more or less disreputably clad, citizens, I , travelled by the 10 a.m. train toW'ake- i field ; where we mounted our bicycles, ' and climbing over the ranges descended ' into tho smiling Dovedale Valley. As the other members of our party were following by the 2 p.m. train, wo rode leisurely. The "afternoon was waning when we crossed tho suspension bridge over (lie . Motueka river near Pokororo and en- t tered the Graham Valley. Another half-hour's ride brought us to our destination, Mr Stebbins' comfortable Accommodation House ; the remainder of our party arriving a few hours after dark. Even at this time of the year tho narrow gorge was lit by the weird glare of burning logs in ; tho adjacent paddocks. ! It seemed to us a lamentable waste of good firewood, but in bush parlance , it is merely "clearing rubbish." j We were called at tho first glimmer of dawn, and shiveringly glancing out of the window, found a sharp frost had whitened the ground like a fall of snow. "It was glorious! You fellows don't know what you've missed," cried two of our party who pretended they had enjoyed their morning dip in the neighbouring creek. j "Don't make any mistake — we know ,- what we've missed;" we replied em- ■ phatically, edging nearer the blazing logs in the open fireplace. Our Scientist informed us at break- ! fast that we were now only some 200 ; feet above sea level. The first stretch * up the grassed valley was uninterest- ' ing, but soon the bridle track skirted the edge of precipitous limestone bluffs and entered the forest. Our photographer, enchanted by tha leafy path, halted and hurriedly posed us with a view to stereoscopic effect; but the exquisite purple haze that veiled the bush-clad hills across the valley , was • beyond his or any human art to re- . produce. We crossed the saddle — 3500 j feet — into another watershed and pans- | ed entranced, as a magnificent sight ap- -. peared through the evergreen trees, the [ snow-clad heights of Mount Arthur towering majestically above tho dark green foot-hills. The view was hidden at the nextturn in the path, which led to the : Pearce, an icy spring falling in tiny cascades down a gloomy ravine. "As this is our last water, we'd better have something to eat," observed our leader. We belonged to the advanced physiological school that prefers tea to whisky, but our Spartan leader objected even to that mild luxury. "If you want to get to the top, there's no time to boil that billy." Our shaggy philosopher, flinging half-a-i-entury oil' his shoulders, tramped to and fro" in boyish glee, enjoying a raj pidly lessening sandwich. j it's forty years since I heard that sound," he "shouted, as the frozen] snow— the first we had met— crunched ■ noisily under his footsteps. j The bridle-track descended into the romantic Flora Valley, but our path continued upwards along the ridge. As we ascended, the character of tho vegetation changed ; and presently we entered an Alpine forest that sent our photographer almost beside himself with delight. . j "It's lovely!" _ ! "Magnificent! you mean." | "Grand !" As we proceeded, fairy glades opened before us, paved with a purity of untrodden -snow. Around us grew palmlike Nai-Nai trees, their tropical appear- , ante contrastin gstrangely with the great snowfields and rugged peaks in tho background. If they appeared exotic in the brilliant sunshine, how would they look in the driving snow- ' storm. Ono could imagine them under the lash of the mountain blizzard breaking into I "Perhaps the self-same song that found a path I Through tho sad heart of Ruth, ! when, sick for home, i She stood in tears amid the alien , corn." I But one's fancies were interrupted by the voice of tho camera-fiend. "It's marvellous! I can't pass this — here, Brown, you stand over there ; Jones, you here, and Robinson — " "I wish I could bring six hundred girl-artists to see this," cried the photographer, breathlessly, "it would be an education." "Great heavens !" murmured the photographer. "And yet, with all this beauty within easy reach of Nelson, hardly a soul comes up here", commented another. "I'm glad I came," I cried. But there were further surprises in store. Presently we entered the shadows of a Dantesque wood; a forest of sturdy mountain trees that had defied the frenzy of the mountain blasts for centuries. The fury of the contest was apparent in their gnarled and stunted trunks, their fantastic attitudes, and the t\visted branches they stretched towards the sky. But, as though to hide the victor's scars, tho mountain fairies had draped them with pendulous festoons and wreaths ot* yelowy-greenish moss. Not a breath of air stirred through the wood. It was an enchanted forest wrapped in the silence of the muontain. As we gazed around we could fancy bright elvish eyes peeping from behind the snow wreaths that lay in every twisted fork and mat of foliage. In the days when the world was young this place would have been famed in song and story as the haunt of elves and goblins.'" But even old Chaucer says : — "This was the olde opinion as I rede, — I speke of manye hundred yeros ago, — But now kan no man se none elves mo." Wo laboured knee-deep in snow np the steep pathless vistas of the forest, pausing here and there, as the artisticeye of our photographer discerned fresh stereoscopic effects. At length we passed the limit of tho bush and emerged on to the open snowfields of the mountain. j Around us rose a glorious panorama of snow-clad peaks and mountains — while at our feet tho suow-bespiin-kled bnsh flowed downwards over spur and foothill, merging in the distant

clearings in the Motueka Valley. We I clambered up ridge after ridge, pans- j ing occasionally to enjoy the keen, ex- j hiliratiug mountain air. [ Presently tho pholo.^oplii".-, ron j suiting his watch, announced that lie ; had arranged to exchange heliograph signals about this time with friends in Nelson, and, seating himself on a comfortable outcrop of slaty lock he pioduced a scrap of mirror, erected a stick as a sighting guide, and winked imaginary messages into unresponsive space. "Could we see their flashes?" we asked, dubiously, as he repacked his paraphernalia. "You won't mistake them," he returned, gruffly . We were half-way np the next ridge when, from underneath the blue Nelson hills, there shut two great flashes of brilliant light. ''They've seen your signals — out with your mirror and answer them." "Can't sit down in this snow." When we surmounted (lie ridge, lie found a comfortable seat and once more the little mirror winked and flickered iv vain. We learnt afterwards that none of the flashes were observed, and that, although we sawonly two flashes, a party had been flickering to us with a, large toilet mirror from the distant Wakapuaka £ hills. 1 Our leader, after a glance at the i North Peak — halbf amile away and f hundreds of feet above vs — and another at his decrepit following, announced hat we had wasted so much time over photography that we could not reach the summit. We did not argue the point, but opening our swags, leisurely enjoyed the view while we ate our lunch. To the North, we could see the ocean over the Takaka hills, and in the dim distance — one hundred and seventy miles as the crow flics — rose the cone of Mount Egmont, pearly white in J the sunshine, and dark blue in the shadow. After lunch eamo mountain sports : glissading down an adjacent slope. Between a novice's disinclination to sit in the frozen snow and au emphatic warning not to get up too much speed and disappear over the e»lge, the sport languished, despite a pathetic appeal to risk our necks in tho furtherance of photographic art. Most people imagine it would bo piercingly cold on the mountain, but we found it pleasantly warm in the brilliant sunshine. A stout, motherly old lady, when inform- | ed of our intended excursion, advised j us to take some painkiller to rub on i our feot, adding by way of emphasis, | that she wouldn't think of going to ; the top without a bottle in her pocket. I Even one of our party, whose boot had burst into a leathery eruption, did not complain of the cold, although walking almost barefoot through the snow. Abou three o'clock we began the descent. Our photographer discovered a beautiful snow-cornice overhanging a precipice, and insisted that the most nervous, truculent looking of our party, should pose on the brink. "Farther out — go on — You've three feet yet of solid ground." The sun's rays had softened the snow, and we laughed at each other, when, almost at. every step, a leg plunged knoe-decp through the crust. Presently the photographer floundered I wildly. "Hello! I'm caught." "Don't jerk, you might break your I lef **' ! "Mv foot is jammed between the i rocks." I In spitt. of our assistance he rould not cxtricato himself, and, as he could see neither humour nor retributive justice, in a proposal to take his photograph and leave him, we had to scoop the snow away and unlace, his boot. Then tho empty boot was worked out , of the rocky \ ice-like grip, j When we" reached the bush-line the | vista below was so fairy-like iv its I beauty that more films had to be exposed. We soon caught up to on:- of our party, who, haiidicapp"d by v Lime leg.

liad gon.- cm ahead, and nriw paused, lioul.Unl nf the path. "Why couldn't you answer? I've bi'Oii 000-ce-ing till" 1 ;un black in (he tare." "We heard nothing." He scanned our faces dubiously, forgetting that sound requires a dense medium, his voice did nut cany in the niriueil in -untaiii air. At tho" Pearce, we rejoim.l cmr scientist, who had spent the day in solitary butanisiiig. | As half an hour of twilight was worth j two of darkness we ran for miles at a jog trot down the path. When the light failed, two ingenious folding-lan-terns wero lit, but the majority of the party had already safely negotiated the somewhat perilous path around the limestone bluffs in the gloom. A few minutes later we reached Stebbins', delighted with tho day's outing and ready for the good meal awaiting our return. Next morning we paid our modest bills, remounted our bicycles and rode back over excellent roads through Ngatimoli, Rosedale, and the Upper Moutere. arriving in Nelson in good time for .Madame Carreno's concert. Nelson is lavishly endowed with an ideal climate, picturesque surroundments, and magnificent, though little known, mountain scenery. The Mount Arthur district is not only scientifically interesting, but its most beautiful features are within the easy physical reach of anyone capable of accomplishI ing the well-known walk up the Dun 'Mountain line. Although not even a scenic reserve, tho Flora Valley, on the way to the Monnt Arthur tableland, with its leafy aisles, foaming cascades, and picturesque waterfalls presents a succession of diversified and exquisite scenes that one can well believe are unsurpassable in New Zealand." ~