A RUN ROUND THE WEST COAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3613, 12 June 1923, Page 67

A RUN ROUND THE WEST COAST.

NELSON TO BLENHEIM AND PICTON

By

T. H. Thompson. No. V.

Off again from Nelson by a motor coach, we run through rough country to Rai Valley 7, seeing high, bracken-covered ranges and much dead timber. We rise l,4Coft over the Rai Saddle. Here, on a narrow 7 road, w 7 e pass w 7 ith difficulty a couple of timber-laden waggons, one with a family seated on top of the load and are pelted with mistletoe. Down we go to Flat Creek Settlement and notice a store, cheese-factory, and some scattered houses. Past Whangamoraoa we are surprised to see tea-rooms in the Rai Valley. In Pelorus Valley we notice a series of pleasant flats and a fairly wide river. My nearest fellow passenger, an ex-bank official, turned farmer, has been through the district before. He has a ear of his own, but says he would not drive it along parts of the road for £SOO. A lady passenger becomes motor sick. We find a barrier across the roadway further on and our names are taken. It is some temporary 7 expedient to ascertain the extent of traffic. Later we pass the junction of the Pelorus and another river and reach Canvastown, which is a scattered settlement round a circular flat, a.nd where there is a good hotel, some good houses, church, racecourse, etc. We stop here a minute or so and run on again nearing Pelorus Sound when we reach HAVELOCK. Tliis is a smaller town than I expected to find and is situated at the head of the Sound, a view of wnich discloses high mountainous country with a little bush on the green slopes. There are three good hotels here and several shops, town hall, and garage. We stop for lunch at one of the hotels and find that the host and hostess are Wellingtonians and the waitress a Southland girl. ThAse representatives of tho fair sex are of quite different, types, the Wellingtonians fair and slight, the Southlander darker and more sturdy. Their complexions are reduced a bit below the colour of the Dunedin girls, the climate being warmer, but they 7 still are rosier than the generality of those I have seen on the coast or in Nelson. Leaving Havelock, we pass through agricultural valleys, noting cattle, sheep, and goats, several orchards and many 7 walnut trees. You cross the Wairoa, a very wide river, over a long v/ooden bridge and later the Opawa-, a winding stream which you cross three times. While doing a flying scud, you notice paddocks covered with blue flowers (lupines), very pretty to look at, but a nuisance to farmers. You are surprised at the immense acreage of peas grown for seed, but y 7 ou are now in the seed-pea centre of the British Empire —so say the inhabitants. litre you are in a splendid agricultural area where good crops of bailey and oats are common. The nearer you get to Blenheim the better the crops. You run into Renwicktown, where there are two hotels, P. 0., school, etc., and then a little later strike Springlands, a suburb of Blenheim, where everyone is said to own a motor car. Land round this district brings £BO to £IOO per acre, chaff 10s a ton more than anywhere else in New Zealand. The land is said to be worth the money. BLENHEIM

This, though considered slow by some of its residents, I found a rather bustling place after coming through the country. In the centre of the town is a so-called Square—really a Triangle, off which the business streets diverge. Blenheim is a very 7 substantial-looking town, built on a level and has many good shops. Facing the Square are the Bank of New Zealand, National Bank, and Post Office, all good buildings. The Club, Criterion and Masonic, three fine hotels are adjacent and there are others. The New Zealand Farmers’ Co-op., and Messrs Dalgety and Co. have large premises there. There is a fine little theatre in the town, used as a picture show. There are two of these shows, but thev were poorly patronised and I heard that such a splendid thing as the “Sistine Choir” only got a poor hearing there. Walking about Blenheim, you notice a big, hefty 7, healthy typo of men and women—the biggest on the tour, I think. It has a splendid climate, of which this is first-hand evidence, and prospertiy is evident also, in the number of cars flitting about, especially in the late afternoons, when you had to keep your ey 7 es open crossing the Square. I met a young policeman there, whose language was above the average and found that he had been a school teacher but joined the force, as he said there was more money in it. At night the town was very quiet; much more so than Nelson. I found a Dunedin man in business there, and a bank manager wlio was formerly on the Otago Goldfields. He had many laughable stories to tell about his experiences in the Central, and considered that there was no place like it in New Zealand. He cherished an old book about it, and looked back to many 7 ha.ppy recollections of his sojourn on the Southern Goldfields.

Next morning I went by rail to Picton. You can also do the trip by motor ’bus, but tlio journey by rail is a good change. You pass several railway stations on tire way, noticing fair crops of wheat and oats, orchards, etc., on flat land with mountains beyond. You pass also a brick-works and cheese-factory, some raupo and flax swamps, wherein I heard a passenger say he saw pukakis (here is the region—about Spring Creek, I think, where one of the presidents of the Dunedin Orphans’ Club beard the thrilling tale of the exasperating “Boekafeas”—the birds who worked in srpiadS, pulling down haystacks—“eleven oh ’em to one straw’Y—in their efforts to ruin farmer and on

whom arsenic only acted as a tonic). You pass Mount Pleasant, a high, bush-clad mountain, where rata is blooming, and running through a narrow gorge glimpse a picturesque port town nestling below. This is PICTON. When you get into it you find a flat business street, bordered by plane trees running up about half a mile, and a second and shorter one, wherein is a branch of the Bank of New Zealand. There are three fine, big hotels in the town, two tea-rooms, several shops, a Literary Institute, picture-show, and a large number of houses. I think it covers an area about as big as Port Chalmers, but is not as thriving or as well built, though it is the makings of a good locality. The wharves lie at one end of the Port, and are asphalted, the railway running along them. Three vessels loading there were the Calm, Progress, and Wainui, the last-named ready to take a full complement of passengers to Wellington. Over at the other side of the port is a very 7 pretty 7 corner—the lagoon and beyond. In the lagoon were several trawlers and launches and a schooner being painted. On the schooner Annette Kellerman and Co. were just recently engaged in picture-making—-she, I was told, in dungarees. There was a Maori in the company helping to cr 7 eate the thriller, and painted faces were the order of tho day. The town spreads up between high, barren and sparsely bushclad heights, and is situated at the head of Queen Charlotte Sound. You can get a run up the Sound in a launch, which leaves a jetty near the lagoon, for 3s, which, doing so, you notice a big freezingworks to the left, a little island (Mable Island) in the centra. Afterwards you wind in and out of many little bush-girt bays with yellow beaches, below sparsely 7 bush-clad, conical peaks—each beach having one or more cottages fronting it. Beyond all this you see green-garbed, barren highlands bounding a long waterway which stretches to the horizon.