TANGARAKAU GORGE

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 219, 12 April 1933, Page 3

TANGARAKAU GORGE

ilnglisliman’s Impressions

strange coincidence

The following account of a strange coiricidence, contained in a letter to John 0* London’s Weekly by W. R. Davidson, Cheltenham, England, has a special interest for Taranaki people:— Last January, after a long motor camping tout though the North Island of New Zealand. I decided to return to Wellington yia the Tangarakau George, that magnificent mountain rift that lies in the hinterland of Taranaki. It is a vety narrbw slimmer road and winds for seven miles between sheer sandstone faces draped with fern and forest greenery. The gorge is filled with a wealth cf fefn, including giant pungas, almost unequalled in that land of ferns. On one previous occasion, many years before, I had : traversed the gorge with a friend* Peter K* —, in an antiquated car, with only three cylinders in action, a leaking radiator; a tagged clutch, and tyre-chains that would not stay on. Through pouring rain, pitch blackness, and a' sea of thud we struggled home along sheer sidlings and round fearsome hairpin bluffs, saved only by Peter’s splendid driving and my skill with a long-handled shovel. I was telling all this to my wife as we drifted in warm sunshine through the gorge, when a car hooting round the bends made me pull over into the ferns to let it pass. I looked from my window inter the' window of the other car as it squeezed past' me, and there sat my friend Peter, His was the Only car we met; he had come from his home 50 mites away on an urgent and unusual call; I was re-visiting the gorge after many ,years, and wc met exactly halfway through. I experiences another remarkable coincidence in the winter of last year. Yarning to friends at the fireside about travel, poetry and other things, I mentioned'that my first flight in of poesy was 36 verses of topical doggerel writen for a concert on a Pacific mMI-boaf and set to the tune of . I got no further, for the wireless at my elbbw came to life with a brass band playing right on the beat, “Oh, it ain’t going’ to rain no more;” taking the very words out of my mouth.