TE ANAU AND MILFORD SOUND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2295, 24 February 1898, Page 12

TE ANAU AND MILFORD SOUND.

(From An Occasional Coheespondent.) The Uuiori S.S. Company's annual excursions to the Western Sounds are now over. The amount of patronage has been fuily up to the average. Visitors, so far as I can learn, have been well pleased. The scenery of the various sounds was viewed under favourable circumstances. It would be an interesting study to flud oub reasons For the diffiarenoe in different lots of people. Th^ Ribora* brought round some 70 pi^eogere ; M of these visited the Subheclaud Falls. 45 reburning to the ship, and two coming ovorland by w»y of Lake Te Anau. In the first; trip of the Waikare thera w-i-9 110 passeogecs ; 14- vn'fced tue SujherHnd Falls, n.nd one e&tna overland Out of some 70 on the 8f cond trio ot the Waikarc, one visiced tae Sutherland Falls and cavna overland. O a the programjqo th> tnp to the Sutherland Falls ia made a sp-jcial item, the steamer remaining two days at Bliiford Sound to allow the visit to b^ done comfortably. Greater numbers would doubtless go were the present Beech hufs replaced by more commodious and mO'-e comfortable structures. Two huts, each with 14- or 15 double bunks, are rtquired. That would caeeb the i> quirements of the traffic for many years. £300 to £4-00 would build such huts, and after all tho monity laid out on the track the above sum expended on huts would not be wasceri. There is no need now to praise tb.3 scenery along the track. It ia univer-aily admitted to be unsurpassed anywhere. All the more reason therefore to have fair aeuommocfation for visitors. I learn that about a score of passengers on the second W*ikare excursion were very anxious to see the Sutherland Falls, and would have vi-ited them had they baen able to get back to the ship the same night. Reports of the unsatisfactory nature of the Bc-ch huts had reached them, and they thought, better to mias part of their trip thau risk the night's a- tap. I see by the Witness that " G. G.," who went roun'l by che Rotorua, wrote an article for its columns. One or two of his statements d.-nirtiiil comment. In the first, place, he iupinmtei that the b on Like Ada were ail rather leaky. I/e must have been drawing on hi? imagination or writing something he rcarl somewhere which he thought woul 1 look well over his init;als. The farts are as follow :—: — j There were fuur boaw. Three of these did not j require to be baled mil during thy trip up the la,kii and river. Only the fourth bo *fc leaked. It rained by mchfc; two inches or so fell. Naturally, therefore, the boats had to he bakd out btf-ue starting next morning down the river and Hke. In the second place he insinuates that all those who visited the tail ware drenched with the -rain by nig'ot. Those in tho fcevo huts and in the two fcents with fliei over them were | practically quite dry. Most of those under me | tent without i>. fly and uudor iho bare fl/ got more or less wet. Even some of taem kept j tbcrnselves dry vjith their macintosh covering, j The next time '' G.Gr.'"' indulges in s, bit of natural re)ij.i )u beiore so g and a shrine as the Sutherland FaIISj I hope it may have the effect of causing him to observe carefully and state things as they are. Ifc ia all "very well for visitors to write articles highly exaggerated. That may nuke them out • to be people of heroic endurauce. II does great damage, however, to the country at large, ' brides injuciug those immediately concerned.