Add to your Memories Of HAPPY, FRIENDLY HANMER In The Jubilee Season.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 911, 4 November 1933, Page 31 (Supplement)

Add to your Memories Of HAPPY, FRIENDLY HANMER In The Jubilee Season.

gmiautj JiVNMER this month will gSKEpP-jT—J celebrate the jubilee, not of the discovery of the hot springs, for they were known of some 75 years tP^B A .ilfeTrTr : - a g o , but of their official opening as a national curative agency. That role they have sustained ever since the first white man was attracted by their rising steam on the high inland plain that bears their name, but the district has had ups and downs that make an amusing and at times tragic story, and it is difficult in these days when Hanmer is a couple of hours’ run from the city to realise the great obstables to its development that persisted for so many years in the way of unbridged and dangerous mountain rivers. The greatest obstacle to the development of Hanmer was always the Waiau River. Here the Leslie Hills and the Montrose range face one another across a deep ravine at the bottom of which the green swirling waters of the Waiau escape from the Hanmer basin to spread out over a shingly course that provides one of the natural boundaries of the Cheviot Estate. To-day the traveller runs suddenly on to the bridge and is over it into the farther cutting almost before he has had a chance to glance down on either side at the cloudy green torrent far below. That bridge was opened on August 6, 1887, and it is a very happy circumstance that the host, or deputy-host, on the occasion of a happy and convivial official ceremony is hale and hearty to-day. Then he was Mr John Anderson, jun.; to-day he is Mr John Anderson, sen., the head of the firm that built the Waiau bridge, and many other notable bridges that have helped to open up New Zealand since that day. In the old files of the newspapers the history of those early days is most graphically enshrined, and here again the personal element is recalled in the fact that’one of the journalists who were present at that historic ceremony at the upper Waiau bridge in 1887 is living to-day in Wellington—Mr R. J. Loughnan, the doyen of the journalistic profession in New Zealand. The journalists of, those days had a happy gift of expression. At that time Hanmer was really getting a new lease of life, for it had had a bridge many years before 1887, and on the occasion of the opening ceremony the reporter wrote: — Twenty-five years ago there was a bridge over the Waiau River, a handsome suspension bridge, the admiration and delight of the residents in the Amuri and Hanmer, and of travellers. But once there blew a blast, like the blasts felt in this part of the world occasionally, and when that blast had swept away on a wild career over the pathless Pacific, it was found to have taken the bridge with it. Some debris were found in the swirling green water below the sife, anjJ after that nothing remained of Handyside’s bridge but a tradition. Who Handyside was may provide the incentive another excursion into the earlier files, fifty years ago he seemed to be slightly in disgrace as a bridge builder. Actually he had made a very good bridge, “a small horse bridge,” which Mr James Lance said was “in those days thought the most wonderful work in the Colony and with reason ”; a work, indeed, that owed its untimely end to neglect. Seemingly with the disappearance of Handyside’s bridge, and a return to the ferry boat and the ford at different points above or near the ferry bridge, the stream of tourist traffic was diverted from Hanmer. As the fame of the healing springs grew, the river “ only roared the louder,” and 44 the churchyard at the township gathered melancholy witnesses ” of the river’s resentment of all attempts to keep the stream of traffic open northwards. Even the Hon William Rolleston found himself pitched one day into the icy river 44 among the hoofs of Mr Low’s horses,” and a less hardy pioneer would not have survived the shock. It stimulated him into action, and thereafter he took an even more active interest in the development of Hanmer Springs. He was not among those who sat down to lunch at the opening of the new bridge,, but his name was in many mouths— As the guests came up, the old residents were pointing out the scenes of many of the startling stories of the road. There was where Mr Rolleston had such a narrow escape; that is the place where the darkie lost his head and nearly lost his own life ' and that of the Hon E. Parker. Yonder young Mr Atkinson rode into the river one day of flood and saved the ferry boat and a load of passengers. The pioneers of 1887, of course, regarded the new bridge chiefly as a means of access to Hanmer, and Mr Lance really let himself go in prophetic strain. As long as this 44 Pool of Bethesda ” at Hanmer accessible the day of miracles would not be over. 44 Every time he came there he saw some great miracle, some evidence of the vast healing power of these springs. He saw the infirm and the cripples coming to the Pool of Bethesda and going away healed.”

Warming to* his theme, Mr Lance became almost lyrical. He recalled the then famous case of the South Australian invalid who, many years before, had been induced to try the Hanmer Springs. He had come a cripple. Accommodation there was none. He had bathed; he had rolled in the snow; he had enjoyed himself; he had gone away cured, and Hanmer’s reputation had begun. Mr Lance laughed at the idea of the Northern Springs, as Rotorua was called, bearing any comparison with the bracing climate of the Hanmer plain, and for that reason he predicted a European celebrity for Hanmer. He had read in the visitors’ book only that morning the observations of an Oxford Master of Arts who pronounced the bath at these springs to be the best and cheapest in the world. 44 The bath was really wonderfully cheap,” Mr Lance was reported as saying. 44 For about one-third of what they charged at similar establishments in England every comfort, convenience and health-restoring benefit was given. At the price charged even the veriest miser could cheerfully avail himself of the advantage offered. He would quote Oliver Goldsmith’s definition of a miser:—— As some lone miser visiting his stpre Bends oer his treasure: counts, recounts it o’er; Hoard after hoard his raptured visions All, But still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still.

44 Is it not reasonable to suppose,” he added, 44 that even such a low wretch as this would spend the small sum required for the purpose of being healed from painful infirmity.” Fifty years have worked revolutionary changes in Hanmer and the means of ' reaching it. Changes that hardly anyone could have dreamed of have brought the Hanmer plain within two or three hours of the city by road, to say nothing of access by air. But the passage of time has only served to show that accessibility is the primary consideration to-day, as it was then, in promoting the success of a tourist and health resort away from the beaten track. To say that perfection has been reached in the transport connection with Hanmer may provoke a smile fifty years from now, when travel may be a mere matter of catapulting from point to point by air. But it is a contention that may be stoutly maintained, having regard to the fact that nobody but a chronic invalid would want to be catapulted anywhere over the famous scenic routes of the Dominion. Certainly the gathering at the Waiau bridge in 1887 could hardly have dreamed* of the advance that would be made in travel alone, for they left Christchurch by Pullman car at 7.34 p.m., stopped only at Rangiora and Balcairn, and steamed into Culverden at 10.19 p.m., 44 having accomplished the sixty-nine miles in 2 hours 45 minutes, including stoppages—believed to be the best on record in these parts.” It is hard, indeed, to leave that convivial party, which swarmed into the country hotel at Culverden headed by 44 a genial gentleman with a lively bugle.” They were there to drink success to Hanmer and everybody who was helping to make its future sure. There were sentimental and convivial toasts on the day of the ceremony. The health of old John Anderson and his wife was followed by a verse of ‘‘John Anderson My Jo,” very touchingly sung. With the health of 44 the giants of the Amuri, the Rutherford family,” the company sang 44 For They Are Jolly Big Fellows,” and, in responding, Messrs W. and R. Rutherford each referred to the superior size of the other.

Bith the changing standards .of modern living, a healthy variant is to be noted in the demand that the normal man or woman makes upon the resources of those who cater for health or holiday relaxation. It is a variant that is symptomatic'of the new interest that people take in their ruling recreations. There is less stagnation and indolence in the modern holiday, because it opens the door to the unrestricted enjoyment of those sports and pastimes that are so hardly bought or rarely snatched in the race against time in the cities. Boredom was the one thing from which everybody used to pray for deliverance when setting out for a holiday, but boredom can never stow, itself away in a cargo that includes a bag of golf clubs or a tenuis racket; and where each day is rounded off in pleasant anticipation and planning for another, the programme has a gust that men not easily attuned to an old-fashioned holiday are beginning to appreciate. Of the things that make any health resort agreeable, therefore, an extended catalogue may be made in a series of . contrasts: — Accessibility by road, but a sense of isolation at journey’s end. Re§t and silence at will, but recreation and the , sqcial glitter of after-dinner company. A bracing climate, but the means to let the world go by in indolent inactivity. Sunshine by day, but the scent of log fires by night. Hanmer is so richly endowed with, everything that can make a holiday enjoyable that the people of Canterbury can never be too grateful not only for its nearness to the city, a run of a few hours by motor car over perfect roads, but also for the gift by which Nature has poured out its warm springs in the clear air of this sun-trap in the mountains. The necessity that drove men in ancient times into the hills for refuge against their enemies is again forcing them to return to the health-giving mountains. For modern conditions of life demand the utmost of physical and mental virility to keep back the foes of efficiency and success. Life to-day is strenuous. It wears down the heart. It tires the body. As the seaweary traveller leaps ahead in longing when the ocean yields up the grey line of a distant shore, so city dwellers condemned to daily life on the plain's monotonous level, lift wistful eyes to the mountains, and sigh for the wings of the morning. But although the ranges stand ever invitingly there, weary men feel the need of a smooth road to travel hv and comfort and ease at the end of the journey. For such Hanmer is the fulfilment of desire. The road to Hanmer is undpubtedly entrancing. It leads by downs and farmlands where the brown sod is turned cleanly in the wide acres, and the spring wheat carpets the earth with green; where the willow grows along the moist valleys and the belted pines crown the hill. There are many beauties and natural whimsicalities in the Weka Pass, but these are only a curtain-raiser to the spectacle of rugged grandeur just before one enters the Hanmer basin. The high spot of the road lies at the junction of the Waiau, the Percival and the Hanmer rivers, and one cannot pass through that precipitous cutting and over the short viaduct but one hears in retrospect the striking horse-hoofs on the flinty track, and the shout of dismounting riders at the accommodation house door. Far below, up river from the rocky ravine and out over the basin and yellow snaky rivers that break and rejoin around a thousand shingly islands on their barren beds, one sees down the vision of the years of spectral forms of bullock teams steaming in the noonday sun, as with lashing whip and full-throated oaths the pioneers penetrated into the untamed wilds to establish stations in the hill fastness. To-day the old accommodation house above the cliffs is a peaceful homestead, and soft willows and golden gorse aflame in the spring has cast a haloed richness round the spot. It is romantic now by the right of its own beauty as much as by the untold stories that riders of another century have left there. A little while ago prospectors found the colour of gold in the river about this region, but the richest gold men look for now is the gold of the forests beyond—the gold at the red heart of the pine and the splendour of the changing leaf on the sunny slopes of Hanmer. Every season has its beauty—even winter. But before that cold lady draws her lacy veil across the face of the forest, the happy wanderer, treading softly down the aisles walks in green and then in golden glory from forest edge to forest edge. A few hundred yards from tile Lodge gates Dog Creek, swollen with clayey water, tumbles tumultuously round the skirts of the trees, gathering the white cataracts of tributaries in a low rumble that runs in an even monotone under the shriek of the mill saw. There the clean smell of sap and sawdust mingles in the air with briar and broom.