SIR GEORGE FENWICK’S NORTHERN TOUR.

Northland Age, Volume 21, Issue 8, 5 June 1922, Page 3

SIR GEORGE FENWICK’S NORTHERN TOUR.

During April Sir George Fenwick, accompanied by his son Dr. (Major) Fenwick, made a tour of the north by motor car. On his return to Dunedin he published in his paper “The Otago Daily Times” an interesting account of the trip from which we make some extracts.

AT KAITAIA, THENCE TO AHIPARA AND 90-MILE BEACH.

Having for the whole of the day been traversing an interesting part of the far north we reached Kaitaia about 6 p.m. and found that the local manager of the North Auckland Farmers’ Co-operative Limited, Mr. Morpeth, to whom we had a letter of introduction, had procured excellent accommodation for us in a well-conducted boarding-house. The town was unusually busy, owing to a visit that was being paid to it by Mr. McDonald, the Public Trustee, accompanied by a former holder of the position, Doctor Fitchett, C.M.G. These gentlemen were paying their first visit to the Far North and were the guests of the towns-people at a banquet, to which Dr. Fenwick and I were invited. The Chairman took full advantage of the opportunity afforded him to eulogise in glowing and felicitous terms the splendid district of which Kaitaia is the centre, and especially dilated on the potentialities of the 30,000acres wamp area that liesclose to the town and is being scicntificially drained by the Government.

Next morning we were up at six o’clock, breakfasted at 6. 30, and started on this interesting section of our tour at seven. Following the instructions given to 11s on the preceding evening, we turned sharpiy from the main street to the road leading to Ahipara, where the land was left and entrance made to the Ninety-mile Beach—wrongly so named, for its stretch is 60 miles. At Ahipara ve were promptly met by the school teacher of the district, who greatly facilitated onr progress by piloting us through a Government reserve, heavily overgrown with gorse, to the mouth of a stream on its northern side, thus saving u s the necessity of having to cross the sandy mouth, for it debouched on the beach. Having said good-bye to our courteous guide, the car was shaped for the edge of the breakers and turned to the northward for a non-stop run of 60 miles. V>e had been carefully warned that on no account must we come to a stop, or we would almost certainly be involved in trouble through the tyres sinking, for solid as the surface apparently is on this magnificent beach it is not sufficiently so to prevent a stationary car from breaking through and becoming immoveable.

A STIRRING BEACH RIDE-60 MILES IN AN HOUR AND A-HALF Fully alive to the risk involved, our capable chauffeur, hat and coat discarded, a warm cardigan jacket his outer garment, settled down to his work. I leel that I shall be at a loss far words to describe that memorable and exhilarating spin. It was to be done at high speed, and as our trusty Dodge raced along the shore, edged by the white breakers with their curling tops, speed was accelerated to 35 miles per hour, then we settled down to 40 miles, with an occasional increase to 42 for a few moments. The average speed maintained for the whole distance was not under 40 miles per hour. As we raced along vivid interest was centred in the numerous gatherings of seabirds settled on the beach. Seagulls, terns, toreas (the oyster-catcher—a handsome blackbacked bird with a red bill and red legs) —rose in whirling bands and scattered to left and right as we approached them. Many times they narrowly missed hitting our windscreen, which had been kept open on the advice of those who had known of wind-screens being smashed through the gulls failing to realise the speed at which an approaching car was travelling. But there was also on occasions a tragedy in bird life, for the death of the gull or the tern had followed on the impact. Mr. West Hill, the manager of Te Paki Station, informed us that this occurs when the car is facing a strong wind, and he has himself witnessed in the same trip the deaths of a number of birds through their inability to get into rapid flight before the car is on them as they rise from the beach. As minute after minute sped, and minutes merged into quarter-hours, and quarterhours into half-hours, the interest and the pleasurable excitement deepened. We had entered the beach at 8 a.m., and at 8 30. we had run 20 miles, at 9 o’clock 40 miles; but the run was so smooth that we hardly realised, any more than did the birds we sent scattering to right and left as we sped onward, the speed at which we were travelling. We kept the sandhills I on the shore line from a chain to a chain and a-half distant, had an occasional splash into the backward flow of a spent wave or into the little rivulets sent down by a small creek. Ever in view was our goal, the bold promontory qf Scott’s Point, while'gulls and terns and toreas and dotterels, in endless little assemblages, with 4iow and then a few godwits to add interest to the bird life, escaped with difficulty from the flying car as it disturbed their

peaceful operatious in sands of their faraway resort. A most interesting feature in the sandhills skirting the beach was tht! great number of ancient shell heaps that shone white and clear in the morning sun, many of them rising to the height of eight or ten feet, and curiously enough remaining uncovered by the drifting sand. They were perhaps most prominent towards the Ahipara end of the beach, some of them showing up almost like the end of a house painted white and odservable for a mile or two before we reached them. There is probably no other beach line in New Zealand where such countless millions of shells, gathered together in middens and piled-up heaps, can be seen. They are the token of great feasts of the Maoris in the days of the ages past, long before the pakeha had reached New Zealand, days when the native population of this far northland must have been very great.