OUR HOMELAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19762, 8 October 1927, Page 4 (Supplement)

OUR HOMELAND.

BY ELSIE K. MORTON.

A TRIP TO GREAT BARRIER.

"A sea trip!" cried Pixie as the Silver Plane came speeding down from the busliland and hills of the King Country to the borders of the sparkling Waitemata. " Where are we going now ? " " Do you see that low ridge of rocky peaks away out beyond Rangitoto, like a faint blue cloud ? " replied their pilot guide. "That is the Great Barrier; you shall have some fun at the seaside now "Good;" said Pat promptly. "Any fishing ?" ." Plenty," returned the elf. " Schnap per, cod, patiki, hapuka, trevalli, kahawai, ling, Johu Dory " _ "Stop, stop!" laughed Pixie. "Pat will be wanting to drop a line down from the plane right away if you get him so excited! " And L'at, indeed, was getting quite red-cheeked and sparkling-eyed with excitement, for he loved fishing better than any other sport. Soon the jagged peaks and bush-clad heights of Great Barrier loomed darkly ahead. Over cliffs, frowning headlands, and black lslandsof rock, the voyagers sped, and the children nearly fell from the plane as they leaned eagerly out to look at a rocky islet almost hidden by dense flocks of great white birds. " Gannet Island, a sea-bird sanctuary," said their guide, and peering downward. Pixie and l'at saw hundreds upon hundreds of birds sitting on the rock-nests, fluttering: and wheeling about, and uttering loud, discordant cries. Close up to a black, forbidding precipice of rock flew the plane, and the guide pointed out a faint white mark high above the surging seas. " That is Minor's Head, where a great ship, the Wairarapa. was wrecked over thirty years ago," he said.

" How I would like one! " said Pixie, and made up her mind to ask all her friends if they had ever seen a threecornered pigeongram stamp. How important she would feel when they opened their eyes and confessed they had never even heard of such a thing! The Silver Plane flew over shining blue baySj with native bush and tall ponga ferns fringing the shares and the blaze of red pohutukawa flower mirrored in the still waters. F«r above the rising hillslopes, rugged cliffs and spurs, towered a d::rk peak, Mount Hobson, over 2000 ft. in height On the ether side of a wide blue bay, crowning an island, rose a rugged mass of black rock, strangely like some ruined medieval castle. " Castle Hock," announced the drngon-fly elf, as though reading the children's thoughts, '' and a nice stiff climb for a hot day! " " I'd rather fish," said Pat promptly. " Can't we land somewhere ? " " You shall land on the Beach of Round Stones," said the guide " Have you ever seen round stones?" " Not very round," answered Pixie. 1 ' " They're usually bent a little somewhere," " These aren't bent anyvvhero. Get out and look at them." The children scrambled from the plane, on to a shingle beach, and sure enough every stone v-as a perfect sphere, some of them tiny little stones like marbles, others much larger, all worn smooth and round by countless ages of action of the waves. 1 Then the Silver Plane flew close do-.n to the surface of the quiet sea, and so clear was the water that Pixie and Pat could see the sea-bed twenty or thirty feet below. Delicate sprays of gold and brown seaweed waved like ferns beneath the transparent wafers and through its soft masses passed the swift gleam of silvery fish.