LONG-NEGLECTED DISTRICT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17956, 5 December 1921, Page 10

LONG-NEGLECTED DISTRICT

NOW COMING INTO ITS OWN. LAND OF GREAT POSSIBILITIES. SHOW WEEK IN WHAHGAREI. North Auckland is neither "The Winterlcss North" nor "The (Roadless North." In -point of opportunity, avoiding the exaggeration of parochial pride, and soberly considering its glorious climate, its wealth of waterways and harbours, its untapped mineral resources, its extensive coal and limestone fields, its unrivalled openings for new industries, its rich soils and vast areas of inviting orchard, dairying end grazing lands, it may be justly described as the Golden North. Winter pays sharp blustering visits to North Auokland as elsewhere, but the severity of the winter in the North Auckland Peninsula is tempered by the closely encompassing sea. The cold season never intrudes as a winter of discontent. Mild frosts and hail are familiar; snow is unknown. The same equable temperature of ocean surroundings breathes constant coolness and balm through the semi-tropical heats of summer. In a similar latitude to Adelaide, but more richly endowed with natural beauties, and without the sandstorms and scorching waves of desert heat that afflict that queen of Australian cities, Whangarei, the garden-city capital of North Auckland, enjoys a olimate oomparable to the best in Southern France or sunny California. The reproach of the Roadless North, never entirely deserved, is fast disappearing before the energetic enterprise of the nine Northern county councils, an example of which may be observed in the vigorous loading schemes of the Whangarei County Council and the splendid modern plant with which that policy is equipped. The North, long denied its fair Bhare of consideration, is coming rapidly into its own. The main-line railway between Auckland and Hokianga will be shortly completed. With through railway connections, the hitherto steadily growing settlement of North Auckland will vastly increase, and vitally hasten the day of the road-builders, when all over this fair peninsula the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.