EVENTIDE

Southland Times, Issue 19458, 24 January 1925, Page 11

EVENTIDE

ON LAKE WAKATIPU. (By “Agricola,” Winton.) $ On January 3 I formed one of the fortunate band that patronised the day’s excursion to Queenstown. The most perfect of summer days, spent among peerless surroundings, goes near to make one praise those railway folk who were responsible for the excursion. Out of a feast of scenic delights I choose to write of the return journey across the lake in the evening. Exactly at 5, the speedy Earnslaw cast off her moorings, and the gaily-dressed crowd gathered on the wharf faded away into the distance. Sunset, even in mid-summer, comes early in Queenstown, for the lofty mountains that border the Lake soon obstruct the oblique rays of the evening sun. And the beauty of the sunset it was that on this occasion added so much to the charm of our return to Kingston. The brilliant January sun shot its long slanting rays just athwart the jagged mountain tops, burnishing those wild heights with glorious tints of crimson and gold. Then the dazzling beams would speed downwards and transform into sparkling silver the tiny wavelets of the darkening lake. As the sun sank lower behind the mountains, soft mysterious shadows stole out from under the giant heights and crept across the lake. Moving silently through the placid waters, one found one’s powers of perception incapable of drinking in more than a few of Wakatipu’s charms. Amidst such bewitching scenes who could ever tire? Indeed, for him who has a love of the beautiful, there is no satiety in these mountain wilds. It were vain to attempt description of the thrilling delight that possessed one when the steamer would emerge from the violet shadow's cast by a lofty peak, into the dazzling, golden light that gushed through a mountain cleft. Everywhere a scene of rare beauty met the gaze. On the right towered those rugged giants that form the western wall of the lake, while to the left the beautiful “Rein arkables,” piercing the very sky, reflected the western rays of the sinking sun. Far away to the north, peak after peak reared its hoary head, crowned with the soft halo 8f the dying sun. So passed our journey all too soon, our course set now through sombre coloured shadow’s, now through places where the flashing sun still darted its golden beams. Near Kingston the little Mountaineer, Queenstown-bound, crept into view, its white paddles churning the blue waters into creamy foam. As the antiquated craft, so tiny beneath those gigantic heights whose base it skirted, slowly passed, it left a long, slender furrow on the lake’s glassy surface. And then the gleaming sunlight, where it could break through its mountain walls, turned this troubled train of blue into gorgeous silver bubbles that danced and sparkled awhile, and died into the dusky bosom of the lake. This is a feeble picture of evening on Lake Wakatipu. There could be written a charming variety of descriptions, depicting Wakatipu throughout the ever-changing phases of the day. A skilful word painter could catch something of the still, grey lake’s bewitching beauty at “the early sobbing of the dawn.” Again, such a lake, glimmering under the silver of mountain moonlight, would form an exalted theme for any pen. A visit in mid-summer suggests the lake in winter’s snowy grasp, when the sunbeams flush with tender pink the pure white of the eternal sentinels that bend silently over the sleping waters. O, Wakatipu, lovely lake of rarest blue, set within thy rugged wolds, who could weary of thy ever-changing charms!