THE WAITAKERES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15664, 18 July 1914, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE WAITAKERES.

BY W. H. P. MARSDON.

Limning: the western horizon a long-drawn line of hills stretches from the wide, clear-cut opening where the abrupt headland Mahanihani and cone-shaped Paratutai face each other at Manukau's mouth, milo on mile with northward trend till is reached Mount Rex, which overlooks tho -locked, wide-spread waters of the Kaipara Harbour.

Though but a few miles distant from the heart of tho city the land is, to the greater portion of Auckland's scores of thousands a terra incognita in very deed. This, too, notwithstanding that settlement has been in progress occupying the foothills of the ranges these many years.

A short drive of an hour, in these days of rapid traction, takes one to this wondrous region—wonderful in that being so close to the busy haunts of men it still, over by far the greater portion of its area, retains its primordial splendour intact and unsullied. It is easy, indeed, to step from the car into tho midst of primeval surroundings; easy too, to picture what the whole countryside was like before Auckland itself was founded,

The whole face of the Waitakcres, rolling west in a succession of ramparts, each exceeding its fellow in height, is a natural park, magnificently verdurous. Grassy trails, which, cross and re-cross, radiate in every direction, threading the leafy twilight into a wilderness of untrodden spurs and peaks, inviting and leading the lover of nature to scenes of enchanting beauty. Under the enormous trees there is an abundance of rushing water; innumerable brooks and little torrents dash downwards into tarns and lose themselves in the dark still lakes that lie like cups of jade in the bosom of the bush. Hero and there, through the leafy canopy, glimpses are caught of distant peaks that loom through breaking clouds and, sharply marked against the ethereal blue, the hawk wheels and seagulls sail. The shadows are so deep, the stillness so sweet that there is, in these unworn mountain solitudes an infinite sense of peace; more so" at this season of the year, when the rain-mists sweep like -spectral armies over the level lands below and the sun-rays slant heavenwards like the spears' of an angel host. At such a moment one is fain to exclaim: "What a refuge these hills; where else could one rest so well! "

Every whither a vast arboretum of indigenous vegetation in great profusion lies wide-spread to enchant the botanist. In the damp places crucifers, typhads and orchids, sedges and ferns, palms and lily worts, lichens and fungi; in rising ground of varying altitude and changeful soils, hosts of taller and more striking genera. Here, patches of mahoe, whiteflowered hinau, glossy karaka; kowhai, yellow, red, and white; titoki and manuka in abundance; red-crowned pohutukawa, gnarled and twisted; crimsonfruited puriri; gayly-bedecked koromiko, many-tinted; tawa, ngaio, and rewarewa; conifers in plenty, kauri, the forest king, rimu, miro, and tanekalia; hosts of others.

Here hangs an enchanting drop-scene, a tangle of embroidery, fringes, and tassels. The virgin purity of the clematis and tawoku's pendulous fruit mix with those of the daring climber tataramoa, the bush lawyer, tawhero's profusion of florets, the passion flower, powhiwhi; large blossomed kiekie; flexuous-stemmed -kareao; the supplejack, and wiry, elastic mangemange, dear to those camping out; bordering all at foot piripiri and harakeke, the flax clump, in that rata, with its giant arms clasped round yon forest giant that supports it, we see again aocoon's torture and his agony. To this tree strife, too, applies Lord Byron's verse— Vain, The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, the deepening of tho dragon's clasp. The old man's clench; the long, envenomed chain Rivets the living —tho enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp for gasp. But the ranges have, like Janus of the olden time, two faces, which greatly differ. Let us breast the slope till wo reach the summit. This attained, wo as did the Greeks with Xenophon: "The sea! the sea!" and shall, like Balboa, look down upon the Pacific. Of the Waitakeres: Two voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each is a mighty voice. As far as eye can see flow endlessly the waters of tho Tasman Sea, wild, beautiful, free. The coastline is of the boldest: beetling crags which overhang their base bedded in the beach hundreds of feet beneath; chines, narrow, long, and deep; sheer precipices of a thousand feet; rocks pinnacled and fretted; caves and caverns and vast beaches strewn with varied flotsam and jetsam. There thunderous surf-waves with deafening roar dash headlong on the sloping floor, foaming and fierce, rolling on with fury, beating it hard, but vainly striving to set at naught the perpetual decree that has placed the sand to be the boundary; or, madly dashing against the iron-bound coast, the waves send showers of spray or massed jets of water up the smoothworn crannies oft right to tho summit of the cliffs. Bays are but few and small. Here and there an isolated rock stands off shore, now worn to strange counterfeit of animate nature, now, to something weirdly grotesque. In one spot, a few chains out, a noble mass weathered by wind and wave and rain bears fantastic semblance to ruined turrets, flying buttresses, towers, and spires; its foot, burrowed into at many points, plunges, without a shelf, beneath the wave. Majestic it stands, a cathedral of the sea:— Which was architected thus By the great Ocennua! Here the mighty billows play Hollow organs all the day, _ And the fledgy sea-bird choir Soars for ever. A variety of pleasant excursions may be made,to the Waitakere wonderland of mirror' waters, evergreen mountains, and rockv • steeps. To make list of all the glories does not lie within the compass of such notice, as this. Among the "lions" are Mount Atkinson, a city park, Karekare Bay, Whatipu and Huia Creeks, the Blow Hole, the Waitakere and Nihotupu Falls, Waiti and Te Henga. Besides these also are the city water conservation works. ■.;;.;,