EXCURSION TO LAKE WAKATIPU.

Otago Witness, Issue 904, 27 March 1869, Page 6

EXCURSION TO LAKE WAKATIPU.

(by our travelling reporter.)

11. FROM CLYDE TO QUEENSTOWN.

The contract of hire as between the Queenstown fare and Cobb and Co., terminates at Clyde. As mail contractors and public carriers they have gained for themselves a high reputation, not only in New Zealand but throughout the Australian colonies; and no one who has travelled by their line can doubt that the reputation is well earned. The condition of their teams is something to admire. Better horse flesh is not to be found along the road. They are perfect models of good feed and experienced groomage. Their whips are experts in the right sense of the word. They double a bad crossing, round an acute angle, or descend a deep cutting with a precision that inspires confidence in the most timid. On the other hand the native gallantry of their drivers is a matter for congratulation. The goldfields ladies are loudest in their praise. Fat, fair, or forty, it don't matter ; all agree that the drive up with Jehu was one of the pleasant passages in their earthly pilgrimage. Having stated these facts, we shall now leave Cobb and Co. to pursue the even tenor of their way, and proceed with the journey to Queenstown. Les3 than half an hour's drive from Clyde, the Lake Wakatipu excursionists found themselves toiling over the rugged defiles of the Dunstan Gorge. To call this pass a gorge, is to convey but a lame idea of it. Properly speaking, it is an open jaw of nature, a rend in the earth's surface produced by one of those terrible convulsions which reduce even the fairest work of creation to a heap of ungainly masses. The naked rock, shrivelled and torn from the parent cliff overhanging the narrow pathway, threatens to complete the work of devastation by which it is surrounded. The scene, at first terrifically grand and soul-stirring, gradually brings on a feeling of oppressive monotony. The mountain range is so high that, to catch a glimpse of its summit, an unnatural Btrain is inflicted upon the eye. The landscape is so completely stripped of soil that the only thing in the form of vegetation to be met with is the Maori head and the spear grass. Even these seem as if they only succeeded in eking out a precarious su sistence. The rush of waters, on the other hand, down the rocky encasement of the Molyneux is as snuch removed from the music of the running brook as the thunders of heaven from the carol of the skylark. Everything here represents nature's wildest charms carried to an extreme, which produces a reaction on the mind not by any means solacintr. With the exception of a few Btrairghn-j; parties who gain a living by fossicking about the river banks, the place is wholly void of human habitation. Indeed, it requires a stretch of imagination to connect the majorHy of the hovels found here with human abodes— holes in the rock or projecting cliffs, slightly barricaded in front, comprising by far the largest number of them. In one instance, two large boulders seemingly arrested in their headlong course down the adjoining precipice, lie diagonally the .one over against the other, leaving an open aperture at the bottom not more than four feet high. Here a party of enterprising Chinamen set up the '"head centre" of a camp, and although the place is now deserted, it formed at ope time a hot- bed of those vicious propensities which are the 1- esettino- sin of the nation. In this den these poor representatives of the "Flowery Land" assembled night after night and dissipated their hard-won earnings ; while the fumes of opium emitted from the mouth of the cave were spoken of by passera-by as something dreadful. In some instances access is gained to these cheerless abodes by a descent from the top, but in the majority of cases their occupants creep into them by means of a sort of side' crevice. <~>f late we have heard much respecting the hardships of the houseless poor of England, but the hou3inir of these poor creatures during the depth -of an Otago winter, would furnish a fitting prelude to such a narrative. It was from off a bank in this neighbourhood that Hartley and Riley, in about a couple of months' time, picked up the eitrhty-seven pounds weight of gold, which produced such an excitement in Otago during the latter end of 1862. The precise spot is still pointed out— a low, sandy beach, from which a ledge of rock extends out to the middle of the stream. A place better situated^ for obtaining gold could scarcely bs imagined. Unfortunately, the river has never been so low a.3 it was upon ' that memorable occasion ; still the outline of the projecting rock can be traced by the eddies, ripples, and whirlpools, which it occasions. It is generally understood io be this beach that is alluded to by the statement of the prospectors " that when Ihey became better acquainted with the place they jjever thought of washing my

stuff unless it would yield at least a pound weight of gold a-day." And again, — " some of the crevices in the rocks turned out very well ; from one of these we took out 12 ounces in a few hours." This was afterwards identified as a crevice in the rock alluded to above. Despite the auspicious circumstances under which the place was first brought under notice, it is now all but deserted, having been even abandoned by the Chinamen. Although this is to some extent a depressing state of affairs, it is nevertheless impossible to imagine that the auriferous wealth of the Molyneux has been exhausted. On the contrary, it must day by day be accumu--lating upon submerged rocks and hidden beaches, and the only difficulty is, when and by what means are these to be got at. The chances are against the river ever going down as low as it was when Hartley and Riley visited the spot. Since then, ton loads of tailings have been deposited in its bed, and al hough quantities of these are from time to time washed down to the ocean, the irregularity of the channel makes it impossible that they can ever be completely carried away. The subject is, nevertheless, one to which public attention should be invited. It is a mine of wealth remaining to be explored in some way or other, and many less valuable prizes have been successfully competed for. A few miles further on we have the valley of the Upper Clutha, at the lower end of which the Kawarau joins the Clutha — those streams together forming the Molyneux. The town of Cromwell is situated at this junction, extending some distance along the eastern, bank of the Kawarau. it is built principally upon the main line of road, its buildings bein<?, for the most part, neatly designed, and in many respects commodious. Within the last few months some rather extensive mercantile establishments have made their appearance, a Btpp no doubt suggested by the central position occupied by the town relatively to the extensive digging country around the valley of the Clutha, Bannockburn, the Nevis, &c. The public buildings are the district court house, the lo^t-up, public library, and a branch %ank. The two first named places are got up in the old travelling show style of architecture. The library is a neat tenement constructed of wood grained with sand in front. Inside it is comfortably fitted up, and contains the nucleus of a well-selected library, together with a variety of newspapers, periodicals, &c. It is well patronised, especially at night, when it becomes a kind of public resort. At first sight the bank is apt to be taken for rather a lofty establishment. On close inspection, however, the front elevation is found to be much more expansive than the ground plan, the scale apparently teing in the proportion of one-eighth of an inch for one end, and a quarter of a mile for the other. T he fact is that the building, as it originally stood, was rather a meanlooking structure ; and in order to keep pace with the growing importance of the place, a new face was added. The "get up " is remarkably good, and those who have got genteel habits and straightened means could not do better than study the style. Besides these there is a number of rather elegant looking hotels, and although this branch of business does not, as in some places, represent three-fourths of the commerce, I yet all things considered, there is no lack of places of that kind. As an incorporated town, Cromwell has achieved for itself some distinction. This occurred during the visit of His Excellency ex-Go-vernor Grey, and some rather pleasing incidents connected with that memorable event are still preserved. As in duty bound, the Mayor and Councillors turned out to a man, and showed His Excellency not merely the lions of the place, bi?t certain other four-footed animals caged inside a menagerie belonging to the then acting-Mayor. The party nest sat down to dinner in the Town Hall. As a matter of right the Mayor took the chair, and after disposing of preliminaries, he addressed the guest of the evening to the following effect : — " Now, Sir George, you and I can go ahead, and spin we'r twisters," and if report be true, some good hard " twisters " were accordingly spun. The valley of the Upper Clutha is a large flat bounded on the one side by the Kawarau, and extending on the other a great distance inland, as far as a range of hills close upon the march line of Canterbury. It has all the appearance of being a good agricultural tract, but as yet it has not been taken out of the operation of the squatting regulations. The road passes through this flat, and on the upper side it enters the Kawarau Gorge. Here the passage is again confined between high precipitous mountains, with a roaring, foaming river rushing down the centre. The well-known Roaring Meg falls into the Kawarau at a place known as the Natural Bridge. The Meg is all that the handle to her name would lead ona to suppose, She hag forced a passage down

through a break in the ridge, and as seen from the road, her bed is made up of ledge upon ledge of rock extending a great height up the side of the mountainpass. Over these she comes, tumbling and foaming, even in her most tranquil moments. Those who have wooed her charms during her more turbulent moods, say that she is some hing to remember, and in this respect she is not solitary. Roaring' Meg of the Kawarau is not the only Roaring Meg in the country whose outbursts leave an impression behind them. The Natural Bridge is a flake of rock, beneath which the water has forced a passage. It is some distance below the tops of the river banks — the ledge extending out from both sides, leaving an open ditch in the centre. It is only when the river is extra low that this bridge is exposed to vie?*. The sides of the ranges about this place are reported to be a succession of caves abounding with stalactite. One of these caves contains a perfect forest of the mineral, and its outline in Borne instances is just what we might imagine a fossilised tree to be. The next stage is the Morven Ferry, where the traffic is conveyed across the river. Between this and Owen's Ferry, a distance of ten miles, the road passes round the Arrow and Kawarau Bluffs, precipices some hundreds of feet high, with the road hanging midway between the river bed and the top of the cliff. Both of these passes were bold undertakings, having in reality been blasted out of the sides of the solid perpendicular rock. With something like due regard for public safety, stone barricades have been erected on the outsides. At Owen's Ferry the river is re-crossed, and not more than five miles further on is Arrowtown, the urban centre of a thriving goldfield. Along the Arrow and Shotover Flats a good deal of ground has been brought under the operations of the agriculturist. Lake Hayes, in the vicinity, is a fine sheet of water, and lends quite a picturesque appearance to the place. That notorious crossing the Shotover is situated midway between Arrowtown and the Wakatipu. It comes down between two precipitous banks, a shifting channel on the one side and a sand bank on the other. After a great deal of delay, arrangements for building a bridge have been entered upon. It is very questionable whether this is a good site for the bridge. The foundation is positively bad, and the landing stage on the Queenstown side must be constructed on a bank of sand some distance from the real bank of the channel. Beyond this is Frankton Flat, another well- cultivated plain. Agricultural settlement has progressed much more satisfactorily at this place than it has done upon any other part of the goldfields. The crops this year were really good, and the season much earlier than it was in the majority of our agricultural districts. The Frankton branch of Lake Wakatipu is situated at the head of the Fiat, and the road on to Queenstown skirts the Lake for a distance of five or six miles, furnishing one of the finest drives that could possibly be desired.

This briugs us as far as was bargained for at the outset, and here for the present the subject must rest.