WINTER IN QUEENSTOWN

Otago Witness, Issue 3831, 16 August 1927, Page 76

WINTER IN QUEENSTOWN

By

Gladys Mocatta.

(Special for the Otago Witness.)

They all said: “It will be so cold!” “ Of course, Queenstown is a wonderful spot, but I have never been there at this time of year. It will be simply freezing!” “Do take all the warm clothes you have!”

So many people made these remarks when we told them we were going to spend a few days in Queenstown in winter that we set off with very mixed feelings, and pondered if we were, perhaps, going to have a miserable little holiday. We went from Dunedin to Kingston by train, and at dusk* we boarded the little steamer Earnslaw, which took us the rest of the way to Queenstown down Lake Wakatipu. As we stood on deck, daylight rapidly faded completely away, and soon giant mountains on either side of the lake towered above us uncannily clear in the moonlight. Then, as we rounded a turn of the lake, a light shone out on the lefthand shore, and seemed to beckon to us to come and ease its loneliness. We approached, and soon four youths emerged out of the darkness, standing at the end of a little wooden jetty. They were working on a sheep station near by, and had come to fetch some sacks of chafl off the boat—their, only means of contact with the outer world.

As we turned and left their twinkling light we began to wonder if our friends had not exaggerated the rigours of winter and if we could fail to have a wonderful holiday amidst such magnificent though as yet dimly seen scenery. Soon we saw the lights of Queenstown, and found ourselves welcomed into our hotel by the crackling of a huge log which was blazing away in a long brick fireplace. Could we really mind the cold if we had that lovely fire to warm us when we came in? Once more we began to doubt our friends’ predictions.

In the morning we awoke to find peaked and rugged mountains, lightly sprinkled with snow, coming down to the lake on all sides, and the water, stretching out in three directions, quite smooth and only just rippling enough to reflect silvery lights, and we doubted still more if winter could spoil our holiday. We wandered through the public gardens, which cover a little hillock jutting out into the lake, and found ourselves amongst trees and shrubs and flowers of many kinds, all laid out so beautifully, with grassy paths and little rockeries. As we walked we could still see the lake and the bare mountains through gaps in the trees—such a contrast in their bareness to the prettiness of the gardens! And then the sun came out and lit up all the trees, and it was beautifully warm, and we sat down and looked through the trees at the shining lake and the huge, cleft hills, bare and green at their bases, but with snowy tops. Behind us stood the Remarkables, a l ol| g, jagged ridge of shining white mountains far above our heads. Was this what we had been warned against? Were these the trials of winter? Next day we went some miles down the lake by motor launch. When the excursion was broached we thought of our friends and their tales of cold, and we hesitated, but we were so well prepared with thick clothes and rugs that even outside the launch we were able to keep snug and warm. On landing at the end of a wonderful trip we saw a square, corrugated iron shed, with, next to it, a large black and w'hite board stating in staring capitals that this was Elfin Bay. Inevitably our hearts sank. Was not that board enough to frighten away every elf for miles around?

However, we left the launch and climbed the bank, and before we had gone 100 yards we knew that the man who had named the bay had been right. There could be no better home than this for elves and fairies. At the top of the bank we were welcomed by a tame, handfed lamb which came up to us and licked our coats and smelled in our pockets for food, like a big dog. We walked on, and the track ran into a wood of tall red birches, so straight and bare until one’s eyes reached up to the mass of dark green foliage on top, that they gave an impression of solemn spaciousness, like some old cathedral. How very different these woods are—so like English beech woods from the luxuriant, semi-tropical jungle of the West Coast, only some 30 miles away over the mountains! The path wound on, and suddenly, round a bend, we saw it stretching, a line of pure white lietween thick evergreens, their branches weighted with snow and drooping over the track. Down this white, avenue we went, the snow scrunching under our feet, and now and again we heard the dull thud as little , avalanches of snow melted and fell off the boughs. For nearly two miles the path ran on through these trees, heavily burdened with their mass of crisp, white snow, and. every little while we came to a place ’which had been a pool of waiter on the path, and was now a solid 5-vs.ss of ice crystals so closely massed together that they looked almost like an empty honeycomb.

At length we came to little Here Lake, a -frozen white plain except for a corner on the left, where it was water still,, and where yellow-white toi-toi grass was reflected with some fallen boughs of trees, white on one side where they were coated with snow, the reflections gently rippling as drops of melted snow fell from the overhanging trees into the water. Dull green woods coated with snow covered both sides of the lake, and at the back was a line of bare, peaked hills. Silently we stood and looked.

Soon, however, the wet snow on our shoes and the nip in the air reminded us that we should be moving on, so we hastily- ate our luncheon sandwiches and returned through the white and green woods to the launch. This time there was a difference, as the midday sun had melted the snow, so that a drop of water hung at the end of each twi g. The sun went in, and as we walked we saw these drops slowly freezing into round white balls. At last we came out of the woods and descended the hill to the launch, which was tied to the little wooden jetty. We unhitched her and started homewards up the lake, and after drinking cups of steaming hot tea and changing our wet shoes and stockings, we snuggled warmly into our rugs and watched the mountains and the water with their varying colours as we passed bv.

Silvery lights gradually gave place to golden ones as sunset came, and salmon pink clouds hovered over the hills. Then it grew dark, and at dusk we arrived back at Queenstown, and were welcomed to our hotel by a crackling wood ■ fire, and folk roasting peanuts around it.

These, then, were to be our memories of Queenstown in winter. Could they be more vivid or more wonderful ? How wise we were to neglect prophecies of bitter cold and come!