A KILL TRACK.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 85, 16 May 1914, Page 8

A KILL TRACK.

TO KENNEDY'S BUSH.

Specially written for TEE SUM.

There lies our City, folded in the mist, Like a great meadow in an early morn, Flinging her spears of grass up through

white films, Each with its thousand thousand-tinted globes.

Above us such an air as poets dream, The clean and vast wing-winnowed clime of

Heaven. Each of her streets is closed with shining - Alps, Like Heaven at the end of long, plain lives. —Arnold Wall.,

Allow for the exaggeration permitted poets, prophets, politicians, and men with' a propaganda at heart, and the poet sets out the facts as they are. But until lately the fact was available only to the seeker —the man who would tramp steep hillsides, wade through the wet tussock, and tread precariously in slippery places. Then there came Mr H. G. Ell, M.!\ He would make all the views, the clean air, and the sweet smell of grass land easy for the streetbred people, and make smooth the* way for those who had grown feeble within four walls. The spirit of Old Canterbury was back. The thought was not for the present, but for the fat years lying ahead, and the folk who. (most likely) would neither know nor care to whom their thanks were due. The other day I Avent' with Mr Ell to Kennedy's Bush. A sixpenny fare from Cathedral Square landed •us within- fifteen minutes' easy walk of Victoria I'ark, where the powers...that be have covered the memorial stone with wire netting; lest vandals should cut out the name of her Majesty and carve their own in its place, or goths should obliterate all completely. There the track proper starts. THE UPHILL ROAD. . Beneath it winds and curls and sways the old road, with its many turns and its sundry steep pinches, each with its corresponding drop. This narrow track goes straightly, at an angle of one in thirty. Upwards, steadily upwards, rising so slowly that it is a /surprise to see the old road so far below, and an amazement that one should have come so far and have avoided the various pulls that used to speak "bellows to mend." A--glance" "behind''and the smoke from the chimney-stacks is con- t spiring to take ..the place of the. mists of the late morning. Beyond, the Alps sheer up "above the fog, each spur in sharp white, each shadow in cobalt. Another glimpse: the city is all clear of its'fog, but the mountains are just, grey shadows. And always the autumn wind, unbroken, blowing the scent of the grass lands. Mr Ell talks of schemes'for the future. Sugar Loaf is to be planted presently. Back ouj the main road you look up to see where j in imagination he sees the new planted |

. -. . ~'..... .. ..•..■..,,'..-' forest —totara, birch,'ngain. Even the flame of the rata running redly against the sombre native green. And the other side is to be a place of Alpine! things. • ;

At angles to the Governor's Bay road you switch oft* to the new-made way. There is "Governor's Gap," 1150 ft above the sea, and through it you sight the harbour below —just a painted canvas of the theatre; and behind the city misty and vague. DIFFICULT TRANSIT.

Steadily upwards at a grade of one in fifty, one in fourteen, the walking never difficult. Somewhere ahead arc drays carrying the furniture to the new caretaker's house at Kennedy's Bush. You have time to notice how the great draught horses have slipped and ski ride* I on the unmetalled surface. They are blocked by an overhanging ribbonwood tree. Eventually they go on until they reach the curious, clumsy, narrow gauge waggon the association has had

constructed especially. There are great labours in transhipment, and with its first load aboard it runs up the track, now narrowed almost to a mere footway. A horse draws too close to the edge, and horse and all are over -—the household goods roll down the hillside.

Nothing is hurt much, save two chairs that have their legs broken. Thereafter the more laborious scheme of sleighing is approved. ABOVE THE PLAINS.

The bush lies below in the gullies; and to be truthful it seems to be very average bush, most ordinary, and of a sort to be despised on the West Coast, in the north, about Wakatipu. But this is Canterbury. Beyond lie the broad acres, in unequal squares, suggesting parts of a cardboard puzzle. The Waimakariri winds like a length of bra/.eh gimp; the reservoir of Islington shines like a new shilling, and beyond are the mountains. The caretaker's house is at the head of the bush, 1500 feet up, and HOft below the saddle. The land about has provided the hard red building, stone, and the red paint of the roof gives the necessary splash of colour. Messrs .lamieson Bros, built it, advancing the whole of the £SOO expenditure involved. To-day it has three rimu-panelled rooms to-morrow ijt is to be a guest house to hold many. Already there are tents prepared for those who would spend week-ends. A tame weka, called Dickie, strolls fearlessly to the feet of a painter man. ; PANORAMA OF SEA AND SKY.

_A'.chain or so away, thirty feet up over the ridge, there is no wind, but merely clear winter sunshine, and Lyttelton Harbour smooth as polished metal, running out between the hills to the deseriptionless place where sea joins sky and the mist of distance hides all. The dredge at work leave a little, oily trait; the glass houses at Governor's Bay flash back the light. s We walked back together—-a fat reporter, a man of seventy-six, and his little grandchild. We.talked all the way,-and it took us one hour and threequarters. A trip worth while. We saw the sea, smelt the tussocks, breath-: ed the clean air, watched the many windows catch many and various lights, and sawi the sun red above the mountains. Then, lost the sun and city together — C.G.T.