THE ROAD TO WAIPOUA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19892, 10 March 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ROAD TO WAIPOUA

SUMMER IN THE NORTH.

BIT ELSIE K. MORTON.

" How do you get to Waipoua ?" I had asked several friends who had motored there for the opening of the new road. " Oh, it's quite easy," they said. "Good road all the way!" They, of course, could not be expected to think in terms of river boats, trains, and service cars, so, knowing no better, I chose a route that took two full days to land me in W ; mainaku, by way of Paparoa, Dargaville, and Waipoua. But it was well worth the extra time, for how many of those who have dashed through to Waipoua in ten hours have had the privilege of my little side-trip to Dargaville beach, where the Prime Minister recuperates, and where a very dead whale was once washed up (so 1 was told!) beneath a seaside cottage ? How many < f them have had the privilege of meeting Jock, my small knight of the service car, of hearing the chauffeur's sad tale of the cow that climbed needle-pointed Tokatoka and, being afraid to turn round to. come down, had to be shot to save it from dying of starvation; of making a detailed inspection of the little museum in the bar of the Kaihu Hotel, or of finishing up the trip with a thrilling dash through a bush fire 1 Joys of the Road. Ail these joys of the road were mine, i'-.en, on that two-day pilgrimage to Waipoua. First the long, run in the Northern express to Paparoa, in the heart of Albertland. Thence forty-eight miles by service car to Dargaville, through Matakohe, Ruawai, Raupo, Tokatoka, and many another little settlement by the side of coffee-coloured Wairoa. My first impression was the remarkable freshness of the Northern countryside after the burned-up reaches of Waikato. Miles of paspalum lined the road ; in one spot on Ruawai Flats, some enterprising settler —perhaps the local body itself ?—had harvested the hay from the " long paddock,", and the car had to mako a little detour to pass the imposing stack that abutted on the main highway. Rich crops of maize waved silken tassels in bright patches beside the road, and many a pumpkin patch gave promise of bountiful autumn harvesting. Great dairy country, this, and hard-packed limestone roads that equal any in the province. Bumpy clay roads lie ahead, but one takes the rough with the smooth when travelling by service car! And if you are lucky enough to have Jock for a" travelling companion, you will not notice the road, for he will keep you amply entertained. Jock to me, was Young New Zealand at its best, a sturdy, fourteen-year-older with the bluest eyes, brownest face and cheeriest grin you could find in all the Far North! Jock was the handy-man of the service car. When she panted and gurgled for a drink at the top of the steep Matakohe hill, it was young Jock who gently poured water down her sizzling throat; he seized upon the great piles of copies of the Herald at Paparoa and heaved them into the back of the car, slung the grey canvas mails-bags on hooks all over the front, piled up tin interior with passengers' bags and baskets and boxes until we looked like Noak's Ark setting out on the overland route to Ararat. Two weeks he had been on the job, Jock confided, and it was great fun to travel nearly a hundred miles, a day; much better than school! A real boy, Jock, with the cheerful heart, and the will to work, that will carry him wherever he makes up his mind to go! Adventures by the Way.

Then late in the afternoon, we came to Dargaville over the fine bridge across muddy Wairoa, and so to the end of the first day's journey. With a whole morning to spare, Dargaville seemed to offer nothing better next day than a motor-run to the West Coast, with interesting glimpses of a gum-extrac-tion plant at work in a roadside swamp, and a buffeting in the surf to temper the heart. A little colony of summer cottages nestles among the flax and plumy toetoe at the head of the beach; here the Prime Minister goes hunting the wily toheroa, and somewhere near here, it is said, the Dog that Smelled Ambergris won for his master a small fortune. At two o'clock, the service car left for Waimamaku. For miles our route lay beside desolate scrub-covered hills and gum-lands; in mid-afternoon we came to the lovely valley of Kaihu beneath bushclad hills, with a river winding through fertile flats, past old-time homesteads where pink roses and apple orchards flourished sweetly. No traveller should pass through Kaihu without a glimpse at the little museum in the wayside hostelry, surely owning the most interesting and unique bar-room in New Zealand! The walls are adorned with trophies of. many a deer hunt, wide-spreading antlers and noble heads that might well bring pang of envy to any sportsman's heart! Ranged along the shelves, in curious and somewhat disturbing proximity to kegs and bottles, is an extraordinary collection of animals and curios, a baby alligator from Malay, stuffed native bear from Australia, scorpions and centipedes in bottles, a prancing sea-horse, lovely nautilus shell, a spiny hedgehog, kauri snails, German helmet, greenstone and whalebone meres and head-ornaments, kauri gum specimens, an old- Scottish huntsman's horn, curiously carved, stuffed birds and fishes—a wonderfully interesting collection, which must have caused many a lingering of thirsty pilgrims. Through the Fire. Then the tufted tops of Trounson Kauri Park came in view and a few miles farther on, clouds of smoke came pouring up the hillside, and over the road . . . Waipoua, we all asked in alarm ? For the wind was that way, and the dark line of the forest lay not far distant. Down the road we went, only to !>e mi by a Maori who came out of the smoke and waved us back. Through the thick brown pall wo could see flames leaping across the road —no passage that way ! So we turned sharply and raced uphill for a branch road —either a dash for it, or an all-night hold up! Into the dense smoke cloud, with little red wisps of flame leaping and writhing toward us, tears pouring down our cheeks, choking and coughing as the heavy fumes rolled down upon the car in great waves, burning hot, lit with flying sparks. One moment s suspense, as we stopped short in the midst of a blinding barrage, road, earth and sky all blotted out in suffocating pall, lit with lurid flashes of red. Then a figure came stumbling through the dense brown fog. "Go for your life! You'Ml just do it!" . . . And we just did it! Fires burned on the outer fringe of Waipoua, but the forest itself was untouched, and gangs of men were holding back the enemy. And so through lovely Waipoua, sixteen miles of forest beauty, and out on to the long hillside road that winds down to Waimamaku, as the westering sun sent long shafts of gold down through the smoke-haze shrouding the valley. There are many splendid views of valley and mountain between Waimamaku and the sea, but none more imposing than the panorama that is unfolded just, as you leave the forest, and look far over the valley and across to the circling ranges. And if you see them all lit with sunset gold, veiled in blue and rose, as we saw them, you will glimpse a vision of beauty that will uplift the heart within you, and bring you well content to journey's end.