THE WEST COAST ROAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19932, 28 April 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE WEST COAST ROAD.

BT MONA TRACT.

A HIGHWAY OF ROMANCE.

In the first year of the West Coast gold rush over forty thousand men either shipped or tramped into Westland. Those who went overland from Canterbury or Otago were faced with the crossing of a range of snow-clad mountains such as might daunt the stoutest heart. Of the few passes known, tho only one attainable by the ordinary man was that lying beyond the head waters of the Hurunui River. Even so, tho journey was fraught with hardship, particularly in cold or squally weather. At such times the snow lay thickly on tho pass and the upland flats were morasses, spongy and treacherous. There was a young surveyor who dreamed of finding a pass across the Alps which should bo more convenient than tho route taken by tho early diggers. Others who had dreamed similarly had abandoned the quest in despair. There might, indeed, they said, exist such a pass; but where in that jumbled mass of hills, in all those savage valleys, was the explorer to seek it ? Tho more ho considered the matter, the more clearly it appeared to Arthur Dudley Dobson that in reaching tho head waters of tho Bealey River lay the path to realising his ambition. Only a young man and only a man of burning energy could have contemplated such a journey; but up the Bealey Valley he pushed, mile after difficult mile, until he came out at last on a long, open saddle and knew that, provided he could discover an outlet upon the Westland side, he had found the pass of his dreams. When there arose the question of building a highway into Westland, the powers of the time consulted each other as to the

most suitable pass. "We'll use Arthur's!" they finally agreed; and to this day the western highway over the Southern Alps bears the Christian name of its discoverer. Building tho Road. Nothing so amazes the modern wayfarer across the Pass as the realisation that the man who found it is still living in Christchurch. The old grey road gives you the impression that, just as it is there for all time, so it has always been. So, for that matter, does the Otira Tunnel. But while the tunnel is a triumph of engineering—l have walked through the whole five and a-quarter miles of it, and can appreciate its wonder —the ribboning grey road remains as a permanent romance. Its discovery made at a single stroke a reputation, while its construction compels a more than casual admiration, Men, working waist-deep in icy torrents, fashioned the fords; others cutting their way through the dense beech forests brought the line of the road, chain by chain, to the summit; others, again, toiled in rain and snow and the bitter winter wind that blows across the Pass, building a culvert here, a protective wall there, a bridge somewhere further on. At night they cooked their meals in the tiny whares that housed them, and with the wood-smoke rising from the iron chimneys and the slush lamps alight, amused themselves as best they might —a little community perched on a mountain height that Blade tho lesser Alps look small. And having attained the top of the Pass—what then ? Down, down, the road must be carried, over a whole mountainside that had fallen away in a mighty sliinglo slide, past peaks and "mosses" and waterfalls, over creek after creek, until entering tho Otira Gorge it must be blasted out of the living rock. And so on and on, bridging here, building there, until with a sudden swerve the road was brought out into Otira Valley and the major part of the work was done. A Pageant of the Sixties. If there was romance in the building of this wonderful western highway, what shall be said of tho days when it sprang suddenly to life—when the coaches toiled up tho Pass and came clattering madlv down tho Gorge with the strong-minded passenger a-tlnill and the hysterical in a state of collapse? Consider tho pageant that onco passed over this Alpine road ; Tho coachloads of men and women, eager to get into West land or eager to get out of it: the diggers., who tramped across with their packs on their backs and the lure of Eldorado in their eyes; tho pretty ladies, going to seek their fortunes in tho West Coast dance-halls; the dejected, returning Canterburywards with their golden dreams crumbled to grey dust; the gold escort, smartly uniformed and wasting no time by the roadside; the bushrangers, whose want-on crimes sent through the whole colony a wave of horror; the bank clerks with their delicate gold scales; tho surveyors, the officials, the tramps, the down-and-outers! I doubt if ever, in the whole of New Zealand, there was a road so romantic as this. A Wayfarer on the Pass. A week ago I walked across Arthur's Pass. The wind blew sweetly up from Westland, bringing with it mist and a hint of rain. Little dry daisies f.-uiged tho road with silver; celmisias and ourisias gladdened the creek-beds; and f'owering grounsel was everywhere decked out with white and yellow blossom. The mountain tarns were filled with water, a clear, beautiful brown, by contrast with which the Bealey and Otira Rivers were milky jade. Dropping down into the Gorge 1 paused to exchange the time of day with a roadman. He sat on an ancient parapet, two dogs beside him, and gazed reflectively across th:i river to where the kamahi whitened the bush.

"Nowadays young folks walk over the Pass for fun," lie accused me. "But when first I knew it, all tho folks coming this way was in deadly earnest." Still, even though the occasion were earnest indeed, what fun it must have been to journey over the Pass when the road was alive! As I rounded the last bend of Otira Gorge, I turned and looked back. For one tiny moment I imagined I saw a coach clattering down tho steep hill, and heard the scream of a pretty lady as the horses swung out perilously toward the brink.