GLORIES OF THE SOUTH

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21529, 16 December 1939, Page 29 (Supplement)

GLORIES OF THE SOUTH

LAKES AND FIORDS Beauty of a different type, but none the less grand, is the pride of Southland, famed for the beauty and majesty of its scenery no less than for the fertility and productivity of its fields.

. I Viewed from the serenity of 12,000 feet, I the vast gleaming lakes, the endless ; | succession of towering peaks and the . ■ precipitous forest-girt fiords may lose : . much of their awe-inspiring grandeur, f : but in the cycle of Southland, which i . can be made by 'plane in three crowded i hours, there will come to every voj'ager ■ a realisation of the lavish generosity ; with which Nature endowed this southI ern part of the Dominion. If from the earth the rich and varied details of i Fiordland's magnificent scenery are ■ I clearly discernible, it is only from the ! air that the whole lawless, luxuriant, exhilarating picture may be viewed. j Whether by road or by air. the scene 'is one of constant change. Rich pas- 1 : tureland gives place to rugged snow- | capped mountains; rivers like shining ! bands of metal; those vast sheets of water, Monowai, Manapouri, Te Anau and Wakatipu. reflect the luminous sky; the sentinel peaks which guard Fiordland scintillate as the sun strikes their snowy crests; the sombre waters of the Sounds are placid between their dark green walls; and towards the west the Tasman gleams like burnished gold. It is a never-to-be-forgotten journey to which neither words nor photographs can do justice. Maori Legend Not the least of these Southern attractions is Wakatipu. which a worldfamed traveller regarded as amongst the front-rank of tourist attractions in i the world. Maori legend credits the 1 formation of Wakatipu and other | southern lakes to a god-like ancestor. More than a thousand years ago (runs the story, told b^ 7 James Cowan) there came to the South Island in his long I canoe from the Eastern Pacific a Maori explorer named Rakaihaitu. He traversed the land from north to south, seeking homes for himself and his children, and as he went from place io place he hollowed out with hG magical Ko, or wooden sharp-pointed digging implement, the beds of those great

' lakes. He began in a small way oy scooping out with his Ko the bed of the ; lake known as Waiwera <the Lake Forsyth of the European settler). Banks ' Peninsula. Then he strode southwards. I halting frequently to form a mountain ! lake where he thought it was i.ecdeu I Greatest of all his works was 'Vika tipu. With vast labour and many incantations he ploughed out its winning course between the mountains. An'i that is why these alpine lakes of Greenstone Land bear the classic name. " Ngapuna-wai-Karikari-a-Rakaihaitu.”

I which means "The Watersprings Dug by Rakaihaitu.” Further north the traveller may encounter still further grandeur provided by mountain, glacier, river, lake and bush. Snowfields, alpine streams storming tempestuously through gorges, and flood thirty feet higher in a day, and again subside as suddenly. Their gorges are cut deep into the foothills; they are stocked with salmon, whereas only trout swim in the northern streams. They are as clear as bottleglass, and as cold as the snows that gave them birth. Away in a forest gully in the far south just such a mountain stream hurls itself over a cliff hundreds of feet high. Half its I volume has fallen into blown spray I long before it reaches the bottom of | that precipice. The Sutherland Falls , are beautiful by their great height and i their wild and mountainous surround- ! ings.