Granny-bonnet Hillside

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 4 (Supplement)

Granny-bonnet Hillside

By ANNIE MOUNTFORT, (Aged 17). Rnetihi Road, Ohakune. 'pHIS is a ramble of my childhood which will always live in my memory. We had decided to go picnicking and painting in the fern tree grove on a beautiful, early sumpier day, so long before lunch hour we were scrambling over the bracken-covered hills on the track which led to the land of our delight. At last exhausted after our climb we reached the hilltop and rested in the grass. The scene which confronted us almost took our breath away with its beauty. Stretching from our very feet to far down below us at the bottom of the hill was one lovely stretch of nodding granny-bonnets. Every shade of blue and purple imaginable mingling with cream and white, lifted their beautiful faces to the sunlight. Some had grown tall and graceful through the bracken. Along the fence, twisted through the wires, stood the prettiest of pinks from almost red to the palest of tints. Some were shaped like oldfashioned bonnets and others like the modern aquilegias. Here and there among the bush trees we caught glimpses of soft blue and pink, which told us that these fairy flowers "here pale through growing in the shadow. Beyond the granny-bonnets stretched the lake like a big mirror reflecting every bush tree and the rushes and flax which grew on its edge, while the centre was blue with fleecy, white clouds drifting across it. The scene made me think of Wordsworth's poem, " The Daffodils," but this was a picture of granny-bonnets. Later as we picked our way along the track through the manuka we found still more of the dainty, little, frilly flowers. Suddenly we heard a humming sound and on looking round saw that we had walked within a few yards of a swarm of wild bees which had settled on the trunk of a manuka tree. It was

quite a big swarm and there were dozens of bees flying about. We made a detour to avoid them and a few minutes later ai rived at our destination, which was a beautiful group of fern trees just inside the bush. Here we spent a delightful day and when tired of painting, explored the edge of the swamp or wandered deeper into the bush in search of ferns. We ate our lunch sitting on a little eminence in the bush where we could peep out between the trees and catch glimpses of the rippling blue waters of the lake. As the afternoon drew to a close, we gathered our belongings together and set off on our homeward journey. The granny-bonnet hillside was a wonderful sight as we looked up at it glowing in the sunset. As we climbed the winding track, we gathered a beautiful bunch so that we might carry away with us a little of this beauty. On the hilltop we cast one more look back at the wonderful slope and the lake, more beautiful still, with the sunset sky reflected in it.