INTO WESTLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

INTO WESTLAND.

BY ELSIE K. MORTON.

THE WEST COAST ROAD.

Seeing I had been looking forward for 15 years to walking into Westland over Arthur's Pass, it did seem hard that the Southern Alps should have chosen that particular week to shake and quake, and upset tourist itineraries all over the country! One clings stubbornly to lon.gclierished resolutions, however. I bought the stoutest pair of tramping shoes I could find, marched into tho Tourist Bureau in Christchureh, and said I was going over tho Pass next day. They wero not encouraging. They said (1) I would almost certainly bo struck on tho head by a bounding boulder; (2) swept away by a shinglo slido if I happened to step on a loose stone; (3) break a limb in attempting to cross the landslides; (4) fall into a crevasse or down a precipice; (5) that it wasn't only what happened to foolish peoplo themselves, but the troublo they gave to other people who had to go out and gather up the pieces. . . . I bowed my head meekly; there are times when ono argues, and there are tims when one docs not. 1 had never cherished any idea of going over into Westland save in one piece. ... In chastened tones I asked if they would kindly reserve mc a train scat right through to Otira ? At Arthur's Pass.

So I canic next day to the beautiful valley of Arthur's Pass, lying all sunlit and peaceful beneath frowning mountain slopes. From tho windows of tho train we saw uprooted trees pitching headlong down the hillsides, gaping cracks and rents where tho road had carried away, and gangs of workmen reballasting the railway track. Very lofty and aloof looked-the mountain giants keeping guard over tho little valley, with white, woolly cloud-caps pulled down close over their ears. Very lonely looked the heights and distant thin trail of the ruined road.

. . . I was glad I had obeyed the good, old Biblical injunction and been 'in ek, else might the angry gods have taken vengeance, and never permitted me to claim that heritage of beauty waiting over there in Westland, thrice-lovely Westland! We scrambled for sandwiches and hot lea across the Olira luncheon counter, on the other side of that cold, dark, marvellous tunnel through tho hills, where the moisture drives like spun rain on your face, and your cars are filled with a monotonous roaring, and the great outside world is just a tiny pin-prick of light in the vast, enveloping blackness. You need the sustaining warmth of hot tea to drive the chill out of your bones, and reinforce you for the fifty-mile motor run to Ilokitika. And so I came into Westland that sunny afternoon, handed my baggage checks to an incredibly cheerful, efficient and obliging young man in a smart cap and motor-coat, and took my seat in the Ilokitika service car. .\n elderly couple had already taken possession of the coveted front seat—what a fetish with tourists is that front seat —but the car was a roomy, open one, and nobody cared whether they were in the front seat or the back, for the 6un was shining down the mountain sides, tho sky was blue as blue, and Westland was giving us right royal welcome! Through Teremakau Gorge.

Down through Otira sunlit beeches and forests of lofty rinui and matai, the red and black pine of the South Island, sperl the big car, mile after mile, beside the amber-flecked, swirling waters of the Otira, past the picturesque little Bush Inn accommodation house, and into the rugged beauty of Teremakau Gorge. For miles the road followed the course of the Teremakau River, with the high-piled, snow-crested foothills of the Alps reaching far down into the south, and the silver ripple of the river, and the green and golden glory of the forest holding us breathless, expectant of fresh beauty awaiting beyond each turn of the winding road. Hard indeed it was to picture, that lonely, lovely l'oad, so desolate and wild, as one of Isew Zealand's great highways of romance, yet the West Coast Road has seen as brave and glowing a pageant of life as any of that ever led into the F1 Dorado of man's dreams. Down that same road to the Golden West, more than half a century ago, marched the great army of adventuring pioneers who settled Westland, and turned its tiny villages into crowded, prosperous towns that knew all the swift-passing glory, the tragedy and romance of one of the world's greatest goldrushes. . . . Still by the side of the road we saw the ruins of ancient coaching stables, little, old homes with rust-red roofs and quaint, wide chimneys, long since deserted, overgrown with weeds and that curse of Westland, the blackberry. Presently we came to lonely, little Wai-nihinihi, " Waininny," announced our cheery driver, waving his band at a cluster of cosy cottage homes beneath the dark hillside, homes with gay little gardens, testifying to the industry and patience of those beauty-loving homemakers of the W'est Coast Road. We passed a group of children coming hand-in-liand from the little school set in a wayside paddock; they waved, and cried shrill, joyous greetings to our chauffeur, who seemed to be the personal friend of every man, woman, child and dog on (hat, Westland road. ... A tiny church stood in a field well off the road, and the. level rays of Ihe afternoon sun

gleamed on an uplifted cross; a lonely old man sitting in tho doorway of a little roadside hut peered out at, us through his spectacles and raised his band in dignified response to our friendly wave.

The Golden Past. At last we came. o;i(. of the region of mountain and bush, and sped down the open road toward Kumara, passing some of the. oldest and most pathetic of all those little, deserted mining villages of Wcstland. Dillmanstown, Goldsborough, VVaimea and Stafford . . . what ghosts of the past seemed still to hover about those silent, empty homes, with their lichen-grown walls, gaping weather-boards, and broken windows! Vet how swift and strong'ran the current of life in those once-prosperous mining towns_ hal! a century ago! What stories of the golden piist lie buried in Stafford, once a place of much importance, with its roomy coaching stables, line of stoics, thirty-seven hotels, post oflice, Literary Institute and five thousand inhabitants! To-day Stafford is a lonely, deserted, little village with a handful of inhabited cottages, a few families, and a street lined with the empty husks of wooden buildings fast falling into the last stages of ruin and decay. And always, everywhere, were the deserted tailings, vast heaps of stones, millions of grey stones piled up into cliffs and ramparts, with weeds, grass, ferns, and plumy toi-toi taking root in the crevices. . . . Nature taking back her own, weaving a new mantle to bide the desolation and scars that man has made in his ruthless rpiest for gold. A few miles farther on wo crossed the Aralnira Liver over a rail and traffic bridge and followed its course down to llokitika and the open sea. Tho sun lay low over the rim of the ocean, bathing land and sea in a golden rrlow that enwrapped in shimmering glory the distant hills, the dark forests and the long road by which we had come. tiold , . . gold . . . all the history of Wcstland is written in gold, gold from river-beds and beaches, gold of romance and high adventure, gold in the brave hearts of the pioneers who followed the miners, who endured hardships, loneliness and untold privation in that, land of silent, dark forests and snow-clad mountains; carrying aloft the torch that men have ever carried into the wilds, blazing a trail safe, and wide for the feet iof those who follow after. . . .