A KING COUNTRY TRIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18949, 21 February 1925, Page 1 (Supplement)

A KING COUNTRY TRIP.

FROM TE KUITI TO KAWHIA

I!V EI.SIE K. MORTON'

i It. is rather the fashion nowadays to t. announce that life holds nothing new, I that all the thrills are in much the same t condition as Pohutu geyser, played out, i' and that the cinema has robbed earth and s sky and sea of their secrets. We arc rather bored and jaded. There seems so little to rouse new enthusiasms or in s (crests, so little to jerk one out of the 1 treadmill of the daily round. So r few jerks of any kind, indeed, are left to us! Concrete is fast '• taking them out of our main highways, i' and even the notorious Bangiriris are i- losing their notoriety. Motoring is 1 losing its own peculiar thrills and excite--1 ments; everyone knows the old routes now, - and nobody seems to have much to say about new ones. 1 That is because so few people have yet t heard of the new motor service between s To Kuiti and To Wait ere, on the southern shores of the beautiful Kawhia Harbour. A clear seventy-six miles of thrills, i of dashing round horseshoe curves and t. hairpin bends at hair raising speed, of r coasting down the Pomerangi ranges with t , the wind whistling in your ears, and a. sheer hundred foot drop at the other side ' of a road where two perambulators could barely pass in safety. No cinema has yet filmed the picture of a big service, car loaded up to the hood with mail bags, loaves of bread, hat boxes, parcels of meat, weighed down to the springs with nineteen passengers, swaying down the narrow, zig-zag forest roadway that leads from the crest of the Waipa Hill to Marokopa and the sandhills of the coast. . Kit a real jerk out of life's treadmill ' that trip is recommended to alPwho seek , something " a little different," and whose nerve is equal to the seeking! 1 A Run Through Oparure. Starting about an hour late, we shot out of To Kuiti on a recent sunny morning at breakneck speed, down the road--there 1 certainly was a little dust. here.—and out ! toward Oparure. A brief pause to pick 1 up a couple of Maori passengers at a % cross-road, a pause which lengthened con- ' ■ siderably when it was found that one of 1 the. native ladies was of a- girth that de- > tied the widest limit of the door of the i* car. Without exception, she was the most , enormous lady of any age or race 1 had j ever seen, and of tin rarest good humour. ' It struck her as irresistibly funny wb'L she finally became wedged fast in the doorway, and her enormous body shook t- like a jelly with laughter as the chauffeur . pushed and a passenger pulled until between them she was landed, breathless, on the back seat. The motor car slumped like 3 a ship going down by the stern, and for I the remainder of the trip our dusky friend > acted the part of a shock-absorber, more perfect than any yet devised by the hand of man. For miles we sped swiftly through the fertile Oparure \ alley, a noted dairying district, past picturesque native homes and herds of cattle grazing beside a creek ' fringed with willows, shaded by stately ' kahikatea trees. A most lovely valley this, a rare picture of peace and prosper--1 ity, with its clear pools, verdant pas- [ tures and wealth of shade. Into the land--1 scape came beautiful touches of colour, wide swathes of pennyroyal, with the sun striking .a wonderful golden mist from its [ lavender-blue depths, the dark, rich red ! of seeding docks, vivid clumps of yellow ragwort, the golden-brown of raupo spearheads bursting into creamy Huff, and patches of tall white daisies shining in tho sun. . . . Pests, yes, and a curse to the farmer, but. oh, how much more beautiful than the desolation of blackberry and gorse! In the Heart of Ranges. The fertile lowlands pass: soon we arc climbing up into the hills, and after that the road is more or less of a switchback for the rest of the trip. Desolation takes the place of the beauty of the valley; a bleak skyline, with dead trees rising stark into the blue, blackened stumps on barren hillsides. Presently a magnificent outlook presents itself as «e swing round a wide curve, a vista of forest-clad ranges stretching for miles into the north, ridge upon ridge, as blue ! and beautiful as tho Blue Mountains themselves. Perched high on a lonely hillside is a little cottage, to which we climb for morning tea. Our Maori lady is taking no risks; she remains seated in'state, and has hers brought to I her. On again ten minutes later, and up into the heart of the Pomerangi Range, 11200 ft. above sea-level. A glorious, I whiff of cool, invigorating air cools our hot cheeks, and for two hours or more j Iwc are in an unspoiled region of forest and fern, in and out. up and down, I through the ranges, with steep hillsides I towering high above us. ferri-clad cliffs I dropping straight from the side ol the I road. The big car races down the narrow wav swinging dizzily to the curves, rending the stillness of the forest with strident blasts of the horn at almost evcrv curve. Memories of all you have lever" read of head-on collisions flash into j your mind; photographs with small white crosses indicating 'where the motor-car turned a complete somersault," or "the remains of the wrecked ear at the foot of the precipice," stand out slartiingly distinct before your mental vision. Then" comes a peal of laughter from the stout, optimist in the back seat whoso head lias just been bumped violently against a cardboard box marked "fragile " which bangs from one ol the hood supports. One has a grotesque and 'fleeting picture of that vast _ figure i bounding from rock to rock ... It is a fine ! antidote to apprehension, lor you know | quite well that nothing of that ; kmd (ever happens outside "the pictures. At the foot of the ranges wo reach another ! picturesque stretch of flat country which jlcads through the Kereteheri \ alley. Here are cows grazing m fields by the 'roadside, ranging the half-cleared hills. I \ quaint little study in natural history lis afforded by the sight of birds perched I boldly on the backs of some of them, I rninahs picking minute vermin from the i animal's hide.' Truly Nature sees to it I that nothing is wasted. In mid-aiternoon I we make brief pause oil the crest ot the I Waipa Hill; outspread beneath an unforgettable panorama, a foreground of splendid native forest, and out beyond the blue ocean all aglitter with hot tebI ruarv sunshine, and a snowy line of | breakers edging the shore, dust beyond lies Marokopa, a place which looks as though it had been started in a hurry and then forgotten forever, there is a I trim cottage or two. a corrugated iron boarding house, a couple of nonuesenpt i buildings that servo as post office and store a steep sand-bank and a winding creek', where a couple of little boys are I paddling a large Maori canoe. But I was I informed that Marokopa was an important coastal township and dairying centre, and after travelling up the rich and beautiful Marokopa Valley, after mile after mile of fascinating glimpses of the still reaches of 4he Marokopa groves of ponga ferns, a ud little Maori whares nestling beside the creek, well, one could believe anything good of so delightful a district! " It. is nearly five o'clock by the time we complete the twenty odd miles from Marokopa to Kinohaku, on the shores of Kawhia Harbour. The tide is out, and a winding channel of blue marks a shallow waterway between the mud-banks. We round another curve of the harbour, and after a four-mile run come at last to our journey's end, at Te Waitere, "the rushing water," or as X is perhaps better known, Lemon Point. Comfortable accommodation is obtained at a boarding house built on the site of one of New Zealand's early mission stations, and a delicious plunge at sunset in the, blue waters swirling round the littlo wharf marks fittingly the end of a perfect day.