ARTHUR'S PASS AND OTIRA GORGE.

Oxford Observer, Volume V, Issue V, 16 June 1894, Page 3

ARTHUR'S PASS AND OTIRA GORGE.

It is past noon on a beautiful clear day and every breatE one^ draws is most pure and exhilarating. The air seems sweet as if it bad been purified by the aid of the mountain snows. How far are we now from^the toD VJ of the Pass? about half a mile. Stay and give the horses a blow for it is a long pull up from the Bealey bridge. "While the horses get their wind we

will enjoy the view. Now look in the direction from whence we came. There is the Waimakariri away in the far distance, and the Bealey winding down to it. The hills' on each side 'of the Bealey have their bases covered with timber, and the tops with green mosses, lillies and grasses. The top valleys, filled with snow ': and out of these, numerous cascades, come leaping over into dark chasms beneath'. Turn and look the other way, while we walk to the top of the pass. Behind we leave the dark birch traes, now all before us has a different appearance, on each side of the road are beds of the mountain lily. We arrive at the top of Arthur's Pass. The view is never to be forgotten, the. great hills tower above us on each side, to the right hand and to the left. The one we are looking up at on our left is Mount Rolleston. This lovely bit of mountain scenery holds us entranced ; the more we look at it, the more pleasure we find in the majestic beauty of the scene. The mountain seems so close to us, we almost feel as if we could touch it with our hand. The whit9 reliefs of the glaciers and the cobalt of the sky, make the jagged pinnicles of the rocks stand out with great clearness. Oh! how we should like to climb away, away, up there everything looks so pure. Away in front of us is the far famed Otira Gorge, of which we can obtain a better view a little farther on. So we descend a short distance ; but what a change in the foliage ; not a birch tree to be seen all new timber, most of the trees are never seen on the eastern side of the range. The one thing that strikes you, how is this great change in the vegetation. What is the cause of it ? and the only conclusion you arrive at, is, that the western side has the warm rains and winds ; while the eastern gets the cold winds and snows. Here the mail coach passed us, it came up out of the gorge as if by magic ; it had nofc wings how did it come ? for we could see no road. After proceeding a little, and standing at the edge of the road and looking down into the gorge beneath^ we saw a cottage directly beneath our feet as it were. Then we came to the conclusion that there must be a road down to that cottage, but we could not tell how a road could possibly be made to it. But at last we made out a sort of Jacob's ladder made zig zag fashion right down to the river below.