CALL OF THE RANGES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19510, 14 December 1926, Page 15

CALL OF THE RANGES.

THE WONDERFUL WAITAKERES. NEGLECTED POSSIBILITIES. TOT ROADING WOULD MEAN. PRESENT LACK OF VISION. Tho hills were calling thi,s bright, morning and fortunate circumstance took on© thither. The car raced out along the Jong ribbon of concrete that has taken the place of the rutty road to Henderson. How much nearer has this concrete highway brought the Waitakeres! Part of the main road to the North, it was not built for the purpose of opening up the ranges to the people, nor simply for improving' the transport facilities of the pleasant outer suburbs beneath the hills, but helping to give access to the ranges, 1 en incidental utility, it has performed an outstanding public service. Although the linking roads to the heights have yet ito be reconstructed and given the class of surface which it is now fully realised is essential to the establishment of cheap and frequent transport services, the concrete highway has broken the back of the problem and should provide tha incentive to complete the job. An Incentive Wanted. 'Aucklanders, or a large proportion of them, do know the ranges. They havs had occasional outings there and remember, particularly on humid, oppressive days, how, as they moved upwards, they opened their lungs to the tonic air, gulping it down in draughts that gave a newenergy, a wonderful sense of mental and physical well-being. But, for the great majority, the effort required has magnified the distance to the hills; they have been more the subject of bright memories than intimate friends, contact with whom will always do one good, driving away the fretful spirit, cheering one's heart and holding the wonderful power of correcting perspective and restoring true values. Difficulty of access has been only one of the factors which have kept people away "from the ranges. Many human ills continue to be suffered owing to the patient being deprived of the "will to take what would be the first essential to the cure. How many sick people, having become dispirited and of weak nerve, shudder at the thought of change ■which their bodies! demand! And in regard to the neglect of the ranges it is on undoubted fact that thousands of people become so "fagged" in the summer heat of the city that they cannot summon up sufficient energy to make the effort that is required to breathe tha air and see the scenes which would end their fatigue. This influence will always operate, but the more easy access becomes the less power will it exorcise. Imagine facilities of such a kind that on a hot Saturday afternoon a mother might say, "Let us take the children out to Waiatar.ua for the afternoon! We can be back by darlr." The day is coming when means of access will enable such a wish to be gratified and by that time' there will be on the heights not communities mainly of "week-enders," but of permanent residents whose numbers will bring into existence their own local authorities. Eoads and Routes. With the idea of inspecting as many of the Waitakere roads as possible the route on this bright d'ay was up Forest Kill Road from Henderson, which brings one into the West Coast Road just below tho Waiataruia crest. This road, which is not subject to the weight of traffic that uses the West Coast Road which turns off the concrete at .Glen Eden, has been improved of late and is quite serviceable in dry weather. The West Coast road is not smooth, but as far as the metal extends—a little beyond -the 'Nihotupu dam—is no worse than the* average metal road in the Waitemata county. That, of course, <Joes not arouse one to enthusiasm, and certainly places a narrow limit upon the facilities of access commanded by the ordinary public. The Waitakeres -will never be the' playground of the people they ought to bei with the class _ of metalled road that exists. Holiday motorists, however, may rely upon the metal to take them to the top and bring them home again. An Appalling Section. Between the end of tho metal and piha and Kare IKare, however, the motorist will find conditions rather worse than what used to exist on tha Rangiriri Hill. What used to be a smooth clay road over this section is now a deeply-rutted treacherous bullock track. Deep wheel tracks made in the wet weather are pretty 'well continuous and there are some very bad spots not yet dry. The light cs.r in which one travelled became stuck six times. _ Repairing was in progress but it consisted of dumping down waggon-loads of clay at odd places, andl as _no attempt was being made to spread it or to fill holes, the result made .travelling a little more difficult than would have been the case if none of the . ruts had been covered. There was no system about the work. The dumping of loads of had been spread over a dozen bad places, none of which had been completed as far as clay could do it. Returning from the wildly beautiful coast where a lazy ocean swell was breaking into lines and lines of white foam on the hard sand of the shore, the car made a venture to the left by the clay road which makes a wide sweep around the slopes through miles of bush and joins Mountain Road, a wellmetauled highway that takes one down through the Henderson Valley to the concrete. This link, which provides the only circuit route of the Waitakeres, was in surprisingly good order, and in dry weather may safely be taken by motorists. It passes through excellent bush, and parts of it command views. From one point one looks down into an immense ravine in the bush, in which there is not a break, and beyond stretches the Tasman Se3 to a very far horizon. An Entrancing View. At the top of Mountain Road, or Valley, Road, a view of the city and gulf, just as fine as that obtained from Waiatarua, suddenly opens out. The summer haze often veils the distant background, but on thiia day it hid nothing. The most prominent feature of the picture was not Rangitoto, but the Moehau Range, which forms the point of the Coromandel Peninsula. Castle Rock, behind the township of Coromandel, stood out clearly against the sky, and to the north little Barrier's peak pierced the blue. Further round the dominating peak behind Matakana made only a slight swell in the skyline. Then down the hill, on which journey one may form a small-scale impression of the Motu Gorge. Beneath the road that is bordered by magnificent pungas which retain the untouched beauty of those in 'forest fastnesses a ravine drops sharply, and as fine bush as there is to be found in the ranges fills it. Far below one sees the tops of giants and forgets that the city is near. Across the ravine and on spurs ahead there is more bush, and through it the kauri is thickly scattered. Running back to the city along the concrete with its buses and the press of traffic, one finds it. hard to realise that just above there i : s such bush, such seascapes and landscapes, and such tonic air. But until the roadirig of the ranges is tackled in a comprehensive mariner with a full realisation of what they might and Ought to be for the people," they will continue to be what they are for the mass—an occasional bright memory.