FROM THE HEIGHTS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1832, 17 April 1907, Page 60

FROM THE HEIGHTS

THE SCENIC BEAUTT OF WELLINGTON. I . . A. CLAIM. j ■ In other yearqWellington '"out no ice” in the public-estimation as a city beautiful, and ©ven now people who never look 'have the meet minute conception of the i .-beauty of the City of the Straits. Auck- ! land has always been lauded to the ekies for its double-oceaned outlook, its -draught-board paddock stretching away to Onehunga on the one side, and its ■pretty island-dotted harbour on the other. Dunedin has scares* of admirers from th© : scenic point of view, and the vistas ■fhat open out from the uplands of ‘Otago's centre cannot be classed as any-, ithing hut entnancingly fair. Christichurch is all perspective, except where €he gaunt Port Hills form an iron harrier between the plains and the sea. On clear Says one catches a view of the serrated ©now-capped Alps, but they are a far away -.factor in the scene. The City of the. Plains ifcas had therefore to contrive an inward beauty of its own, and they that know the sward-banked willow-shaded Avon and the wooded beenty of Hagley Park will admit that has its charms. But Christchurch lacks the atmospheric virility of both Dunedin and . Wellington, in that the visitor from cither of the places mentioned feels that it is always afternoon, however early he may be served with his morning cup oi ( tett: , But it is the .beauty of Wellington that ’ impels the writer and the clear, fresh, -vigorous air that Mis the lungs, after taking in the glorious sweep of mountain and ocean, green hills and red-rooted; city hugging the turquoise-tinted harbour from "the heights above Brooklyn. Unless one has viewed this fair vista nnder. conditions from some cattle-tracked knoll above the bill-top cuhnrb, his opinion on the comparative beauty of the four centres is empty verhas been under a cloud in SUcB comparisons * until recent years, •the reason for'which is not hard to seek. We bugged ' the lew lands, and dreaded i ihe hills for manyKaaa/ years. Twenty, i mj, ten years ago. the hill-tops that are vov the favourite areas for residential building*, .could have been purchased a song ” Now, well, the writer did bear quite recently that as much as per foot had been paid for a section]

“with a view” at Kelburne. It is this building up and up the sides of our hills that has in a way opened up new scenes, and now there does not seem anything extravagant in the statement of the I late Mayor (Mr J. G. W. Aitken) when he | said that the view from the Kelburne | Kiosk is the finest in the Southern Hemisphere. Of course scenery is as much a \ matter of opinion as books or pictures, but if there are such things as classics in scenery, Wellington from the heights might be nominated for a title. j From above Brooklyn and away towards the south are steep-sided hills that descend in irregular steps to Happy Valley and Island Bay, and beyond them the ultramarine of the Pacific stretching away unbroken into the mists of distance. Further to the west, one can see the blue cut off sharp by the grey shore hills of Pencarrow and beyond, and a little to the northward is a patch of translucent blue—a lake-like bit of the entrance, resembling a turquoise in a greenstone setting, while a foreshortening of the focus reveals an emerald gleaming coolly over the Kilbirnie ridge—it is a corner of Evans Bay.. Over the dull-red roofs of the city below— the crowded haunts of men—lies the dull haze of industry, but beyond that is the crescent of our harbour extending to the northern shores, where the sun on the painted houses reveals the blurr of another city in the making. Further away the waters of the Hutt river resembles a twisted ribbon of white satin thrown across the breast of Mother Nature, and as if to frame the scene the 'low shoulders of the Rimutakas, and high-peaked backbone of the Tararuas sweep upward. The photographer of to-day Is a very active person, but his (monotone can never do justice to the beauties of Wellington—and those that imagine this in the least degree exaggerated, should be treated either fo rcolour blindness or an infatuation for the low levels.