ROADS OF THE WEST

Otago Witness, Issue 3335, 13 February 1918, Page 20

ROADS OF THE WEST

WHERE INLAND WATERS ARE. THREE HUNDRED-MILE CAR SERVICE. By Will Lawson. The ' early settlers of New Zealand! who planned the railway routes of their country were not obsessed, as people nowadays are pro no to think they were, with tho idea of making the railways follow the coast lines. In both islands many of the surveyed lines struck boldly inland, and, though later influences caused the. South Island lines to hug the coast to a great extent, the old maps still show these proposed inland routes. Usually a road exists there instead! of a metal way. The coming of the motor has increased the importance of these roads, which might have been railways and engines with rubber wheels instead of wheels with steel flanges, rock and race along the inland ways. A instance of this reversion to the original intent is to be found in central Canterbury and Otago. An old survey laid out the railway route between Christehurch and Dunedin as an inland line, sweeping away behind Geraldine, behind Fairlie, and across the Mackenzie Plain, and on through the diggings to Dunedin. Whatever reasons, such as icy conditions in winter or the jealousy of the coast" towns, prevented this line from being built, did not hinder the pioneers in making a road, though those who made it never dreamed that engines swift as those of the railway,, would one day travel it. To-day that road is there still—three hundred miles from end to end. with branches running from it and ends that fork like the fingers of a man's hand. The old coaches that took a week to journey from Queenstown to Fairlie have gone, and mail motor cars traverse it instead. These "service cars," as they are called, carry passengers so that even he who does not a car may travel the back country ways, and see the wonders of mountain and lake and river, and feel the thrill that the signs of history bring, as he passes old camps and diggings. The road is open alike to private and service oar. But there is this advantage in taking the service car, that the driver knows the country -he travels as a student knows his books. And as mile after mile unrolls, he tells what he has seen in that book. Ihey are unusual men, these mail-car drivers, resourceful, cooi, tireless, and blessed! with a dry humour, such as often comes to those whose days are spent on the road. The two-days' run becomes all too short and the' ending seeans abrupt. In whichever direction the journey is undertaken there is a wealth of. beauty at the outset and a splendour at the end —Mount Cook and the lakes in the north, Wakatipu and the view from the Crown Range in the south, with a chain of lesser charms of mountain, lake, an<] river strung on that ribbon of road that is 300 miles long. Since the service oars do not compete with tho railways, they do not start from Timaru, which marks the actual beginning of this inland road. They await the tram at Fairlie, 38 miles away, through an undulating land .-whose fields are rich with colours ranging "from green to gold and richer still in the world's wealth. Fairlie and The Hermitage are at tho extremities of the fork at the northern end of the road, but Pukaki at the place where the merry thoughts meet. Along these forks, over Burke's* Pass, and by -the beautiful Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki, is the way to Mount Cook, a well-known way. But the wilderness road begins where the big tourist cars turn off toward the mountains, and the service car, like a seasoned sundowner, with "Matilda up" and a hundred and ono packages slung carelessly about him, turns its back on the milky waters of Lake Pukaki and pushes on over a broad, yellow, sunlit plain. The sense,of openness and of distance is exhilarating, the views of the faraway, smooth-booking hills—hills which might be called mountains elsewhere—are in colours and soft, pleading perspective. Mount Cook, seen in all its snowy gloryacross the waters of Pukaki, is a vision of heavenly splendour; this before us, is earthly loveliness, warm beneath wonderful skies. And the road, going on and on, is part of the picture; with all its busy, humdrum details and air of high commerce, it is of the wilderness, afteraal a, wilderness which is being tamed. Once there were only homesteads at long intervals. Now, the" frequent farms by the way, new and shadelcss, tell of the portioning out of the broad acres. Ben Ohau homestead, far on the left, a shimmer of green beneath the bare Grampian Hills, is the limit set to our vision in that direction. The green is the green of shade trees, growing beside cool waters, for there is abundant water in this sunny treeless land. _ Every old homestead is well guarded by giant willows and poplars and spruce and larch, brought across seas for this purpose in days gone by. But the road goes on, for the time being, where there is no shade, and the car follows it.

It is not very much of a road, it is not even a cart road, for there is no horsetrack in the ccn'.re. It is th* mail-oar road, and just for a little while, one _ wonders whether it wiil prove an road after all. Looking at the brown hills of Roxburgh Downs, on tho right and on the yellow levels leading the eye to the left again, to Aider. Homestcid and Grampian Hills homestead, it seeins that it will b 6 a sun-scorched ride south. Where are the rivers, the lakes.? Tho warm breeze singing past brings the welcome of the back country. Ac open gateway, where an empty kennel tells of an absent boundary dog, seems to bid us "come right in." From, a quiet stream called Twizle Creek, some Paradise duck clash as they rise on easy wings, unafraid and curious. And then we come to the Ohau River. Ohau River is a challenge to tho artist's brush. Its stream is blue, vivid blue, richer than royal, more brilliant than indigo. It flows between yellow banks, beneath preen willows and a brown. ,iron bridge. Every stone of tho river bottom can be seen, and the water is as cold as ice. for it comes from Lake Ohau, which has its being from the icefields of the Alps. Ohau is tho only lake in these mountains that has bushed shores. The beauty of the Ohau is tho beauty of a gowned lady in a cluster of handsome, halfnaked savages. Past Benmore homestead, with its groves of English trees and creeping English roses and flowing creeks, throupb which the wheels splash, tho road winds away to Ohau, to the source of that blue &X£X which is iho boundary, in nifUi'B reckon-

ing between Canterbury and Otngo, but in Nature's ryes is a living jewel flowing between banks of gold. The mail-ears do not go to Ohau —not yet. They will go soon, when a hostel has been built and the tracks opened, across tho Seeley Range to the Hermitage. For tho present there is enough to do'to get to the hamlet of the musical name Omarama, in time for the midday meal. Tho road wandera through the old sheen yards of Bonmore and on by tho side of' a clear brown stream which falls at length into tho rapid, rushing torrent of tho Ahuriri River. We see the Ahuriri first from the height of a long wooden bridge. Tt will be many hours ere wo say farewell to the samo stream, for our way to the Hindis is along the Ahuriri's banks, far past Omarama, which is 30 miles from Pukaki and stands at tho junction of the road from Kurow.