A SPLENDID WALK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20708, 4 May 1929, Page 11

A SPLENDID WALK.

BAINHAM-KARAMEA TRACK. “BEST IN THE WORLD." “W« have had a unique experience which we would not have .missed for anything,” said Mr 6. C. Black, M.P., who, with Mr R. W. Marshall, district manager of the Tourist Department at Dunedin, arrived at Motueka on Tuesday morning from Gourland Downs, some 47 miles south-west of Cpllingwood says the Motueka correspondent of the Lyttelton Times). Intending to reach Karamea on Tuesday, Mr Black and Mr Marshall, accompanied by Mr E. E. Clouston and his son, left Bainham on Saturday last. . “We reached the Downs at 4 o’clock that afternoon, and* then,” continued Mr Black, “the storm which had done so much damage around the Motueka and Nelson district started, incessant rains following in the wake of heavy winds. Sunday afternoon looked as if tilings would clear, but again came the rain until about 7 o’clock, and then a star-lit sky saw us to bed; about 9.30 up came the storm again, and it did not leave us till wo struck Collingwood on Monday night.” ** I do not think we will forget the journey back from Gourland for many a day. In the saddle at 9 a.m., we carried on without food until we reached Bainham at 4.30 on Monday afternoon. The Blue Duck Creek was running about five feet of water when we set out, and on reaching the Browfi River it took the horses all their time to ford the flooded and much-scattered bed. All the streams on the mountain track were rivers! waterfalls interlaced the lively hue of the forest way; even the 15-mile creek on the road to Bainham was running bank and bank. We realised it was a case of racing the flood, and we won by a couple of hours. The trip was strenuous; but the track with the storm at its height was a memorable sight. The fern fronds over 30 feet high were richladen with autumn rains, and the bird life was alive. Even a kiwi came tamely to the track side, while a buck would not leave the track.”

Mr Marshall, who has had a wide and varied experience of tourist work, having acquired not only a first-hand knowledge of the beauty spots of the Dominion, but also of the scenic attractions of Canada, America, and Australia, expressed himself in glowing terms over the scenic beauty of the track. "It is certainly a wonderful forest mountain track; the easiness of the grade, the giant king ferns, indeed the remarkable collection of every species of fern known to Now Zealand botany, all surpass description. Nowhere do ferns grow to such splendid profusion aa on this track. The bird me, too, is excellent. Only on Monday, at the height of the storm, we saw a baby kiwi; kakipos, wekas, mountain owls, and every other native bird except the ken ia to ba seen close at hand. On the Milford track from 8000 feet upward* the tourist is met with small, stunted growth; at 3500 feet with snow grass. On this Karamea trip at these levels the bush runs riot, with fiant birches, rimus, and matais, while rmce of Wales ferns carpet the forest way. The panorama up the Aorere valley, with Anatoke for a background, is fine; the changing scene of the Brown is splendid. On perry Pass one gets a cathedral landscape “with the spires of the peaks Anatoke, Heaphy, and Perry. On the pass also is met a remarkable variety of alpine flora—even tho manuka is seen in mapy species, hrom Waiho to Fox Glacier one meets scattered here and there mountain cabbage trees, On these slopes they are found in close clusters everywhere. The piles of geological rocks, the peculiarity of the formations and the drifts, all call for the man of science. The track slopes away into a beech forest, interlaced with mountain streams and falls. Never have I seen a mountain slope steeped in a richer forest hue. Contrast after contrast punctuates the traveller’s way, till Gourland Downs is reached, after crossing the Blue Duck Creek, which recalls the miniature canyons seen overseas. I have, because of the floods, been able to do but half the trip. J can. however, say, and say it unhesitatingly, and after walking Milford trackvbut three weeks ago, that the Bainhani-Karamea track is the finest mountain forest walk in this country—and I think that means the world.”