Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1922 CAMPING OUT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 2 December 1922, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1922 CAMPING OUT

ABOUT this time of the year there comes to man a desire to “get out of it,” the ‘‘it” being represented by the routine of life, the daily round, whether of the farm, the shop, or the office. A sudden conviction arises that life should Hold more than working, eating, sleeping and moving pictures, that existence ought not to consist merely of making both ends meet, with a little to spare if the luck holds good, that, in short, that it’s time to take a holiday.

The decision arrived at, the next stop is to decide how and where the projected relaxation is to be canned out. For some the question settles itself simply by the elimination of working and an increase of the functions of eating, sleeping and “picturing.” For others a more radical change seems desirable and a visit to another district or town with a change of scenes and faces, supplies, or is expected to supply, the rest or tonic required to enable the jaded individual to take up again the task of producing a sufficient annual balance to meet the income tax. A change of scene is good, so also may be a change of faces under certain circumstances, but to get the fullest benefit a radical change of conditions «s requisite, and this brings us to the point for which we have been somewhat sinuously steering. To camp out —that is the ideal solution, to get right away from business, from politics, from the sight of desk, or counter, or milking pail, to live for a lime out of reach of telephone and telegram, to wipe ’from the memory such words as “profits,” “overdraft” and “taxes,” to forget, to forget, blessedly to forget. There is something curiously luring to many people in the idea of camping out. Perhaps it is the reaction against the unnatural rush of modern life, the equal stress of work and of play. Or perhaps it may be a kind of throwback towards our primitive ancestors to whom, it we may trust the conclusions of the savants, life was one long camp out. I!e that, as-it may, the desire, is certainly there in the majority of people though often it fails of realization.

There is no part of New Zealand that is more suited for camping out than Nelson. When the forces of nature, working through the slow ages, hollowed out from amid the encircling hills the valley where the city now stands, (hey bestowed on it the double, gilt ol soft climate and beauty : they shut out the rougli elements wiiu barriers pf loveliness. There may not be magnificence in the city's surroundings, no wild grandeur of jutting crag or sheer precipice, but there is every-where pleasant scene of bill and valley. From the centre of the town, here and there along a street s vista, a glimpse of a pretty hillside can be caught and in the morning, before the noise of traffic arises, the call of the quails from their look-out rocks can be beard in any ■ part of the residential areas. There is thus suggestion of nature's nearness oven in the thoroughfares of business and a short walk in any direction brings one within sight oi the panorama of gently-sloping hills and sinuous valleys which environ the town ou all except the seaward side. And these easily accessible lulls which surround the city arc not only- elements in the garment of nature’s grace widen enwraps our town; they are vantagegrounds from which the wilder beauty of -the province may be surveyed, from tJie top of Botanical Hill, or Flaxmoor, or any one of half a dozen others, the eye may travel from peak to snowy peak till -vision is lost in distance. It needs but little imagination to conjure up scenes of leaping waters and icy slopes, of Footling cliff and dizzy chasm, of gorges dark as night and cataracts unceasingly thundering against their rocky walls in that but half-known region which fills the back-country of the province. Here is scope enough for the holiday camps of a life-time. Every valley is worth a visit; every hill is worth the climbing. There is health to be gained from the fresh clean air,

renewed vigour from flic exercise, tonic for body ami mind from llm close tomb with nature. Ami also, there is the satisfaction, in some degree, ol that wander-spirit whieh has played so large a part in the history of the outposts of the Empire.

lint why speak ol benefits and pro tits; anv apology is so obviously tin

necessary.Let ns probe the silent places: let us see what luck betide us: Let us journey to the lonely lands we know. There's a whisper on the night-wind ; there’s a star above to guide us; And the wild is calling, calling ; let us go.”