MOUNT COOK FILMED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22094, 27 April 1935, Page 18

MOUNT COOK FILMED

{PICTURES FROM THE AIR

SUPERB VIEWS OBTAINED EVERY DETAIL OBSERVED The S9uth Island generally, and Mount Cook in particular, should receive a splendid advertisement in many parts of the world, from some magnificent moving pictures of the peak which were obtained on Easter Saturday from an aeroplane, states the Christchurch Press.

' Interviewed after the flight, Mr. F. McKechnie, representative of Fox Movietone News, gave an interesting account of the expedition. Two aeroplanes were used, he stated. In the first, a New Zealand Airways Spartan ' three-seater, the pilot was Mr. Trevor Baker, who had as a passenger Mr. H. Coxhcad,' secretary of the Mount Cook Tourist' Company, Limited, and in the Puss Moth, which followed, Mr. |W. Parke was pilot, and Mr. McKechnie the passenger. The aeroplanes took off from Tiinaru, climbing to a

height of about „Soooft., and reached the Southern. Alps in less than fifty minutes.

"The conditions were excellent," said

Mr. McKechnie, "and I obtained some magnificent views. As we soared aloft, Mount Cook presented a beautiful sight, every detail being observed, while the Tasman Glacier, the largest in a temperate zone in the world, looked like a narrow ribbon. Mount Sefton, which is one of the most inspiring peaks in New Zealand, was a wonderful spectacle. • Because of its single peak, it is a finer sight from the air than Mount Cook, which has three peaks, and changes appearance as one looks at it from different angles. "We encircled Cook, Sefton, and Tasman several times, and found the atmospheric conditions absolutely ideal on both sides of the Alps. There was not a cloud in a sky which was perfectly blue, enabling us to see Mount Aspiring, in Otago. We flew over the Alps for about half-an-hour, and altogether were away from Timaru for about two hours and a-half." In Mr. McKechnie's opinion, there is no country in the world which offers such an opportunity for tourists to see alpine wonders from the air as New Zealand does.' In fact, so far as he knows, theire are no alpine aerial services conducted anywhere else for tourists. Certainly aeroplanes fly over mountains, he said, but only because such mountains lie in their path between one point and another. He considers that the only mountains which possess clacicrs comparable with those of the Alps are to be found in the Himalayas, which, however, are inaccessible _ to tourists owing to their great height. "I have flown over Mount Raynor, in America," stated Mr. McKechnie, "but I consider the view we had today in the Mount Cook region xs a thousand times fetter."