The King’s Highway

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 8, 1 February 1926, Page 33

The King’s Highway

zA ACotoring Gausene —By Sancho

A/TOTOR camping is increasing -*■ at a rapid rate, but, alas, a lot of untidy people are numbered among the campers, and a trail of

empty tins, rubbish, and litter is stretching out over the countryside in their wake. In the old days, when camps and campers were few and far between this untidiness was a negligible factor, but with everybody doing it, it is becoming a matter of very considerable moment. This is particularly the case at much-frequented spots. A recent tourist tells me, for instance, that the amount of litter in the neighbourhood of the Aratiatia Rapids and the Huka Falls is most noticeable, and the same applies at many other much-visited beauty places. If this sort of thing goes on, motor campers must become increasingly unpopular, and the untidy camper will spoil the going for all who follow. The moral is that every motor camper and picnicker should make a scrupulous point of cleaning up before departure, burning all rubbish that can be burnt, and burying what cannot. In fact, on day runs that best rule is to carry home all empties and put them in the family rubbish bin.

WITH motorists so numerous a family, the time is arriving also to stay the hands of those who break down vegetation at beauty spots. With one-pole tents on the market that pack up compactly with the pole in two handy sections, there is no need to be cutting tent-poles at every halt, and the handy kerosene stove in its up-to-date forms does away with the hunt for firewood. In many parts of the country there is still abundance of scrub to meet the campers’ requirements in these respects, but on the main routes there will be less and less as time goes on, and the really considerate and public-spirited motorist is he whose outfit is self-contained —whose line of travel is marked neither by a wake of litter, nor by destroyed vegetation. 'MOTHER matter the cause of much well-justified complaint by county councils all over the land is the habit of throwing benzine tins on the side of the road and over bridges into streams. These tins are

being continually removed by the roadmen from drains, ditches, and culverts which they have blocked. The motorist who so disposes of his empty tins is thus acting against his own interests, for blocked drainage as a rule means road deterioration, and in any case the time of the roadmen can be much more profitably spent in looking after the surface of the road than in poking jammed benzine tins out of culverts and so forth. TT is pleasant to note on one’s -*■ holiday-time travels about the country that the roads really are getting better, and that the annual motor tax is not a mere mulcing of car-owners, but an investment paying a good dividend. The Highways Board, has a huge task with its six thousand miles of declared main highways, and its modest revenue, but it deserves hearty congratulations on what it has achieved in its first eighteen months. Better things are coming also, for recent travellers over many routes with whom

I have talked have commented freely on the amount of work in progress on the roads all over the country. One marked improvement for which the Highways Board and the Public Works Department deserve a bouquet is in the new maintenance of the pumice road from Taupo out to Rangataiki on the way to Napier. This twenty-mile stretch used to be very rough, rutted, and water worn, but now a tractor and grader run rapidly over long stretches, smoothing out the pumice and leaving a surface providing pleasant travel at thirty miles an hour. One motorist who was over the road last summer and again during the late holidays, has specially asked me to pay a tribute to those in charge for the transformation effected during the twelve months. r J ''HERE is no doubt that better maintenance, much more than the laying of expensive bitumen or concrete surfaces is the key to our roading problem, as a whole. The great trouble in the past with our macadam and gravel roads has been

that the stones used have been too large, and that once stone has been dumped little attention has been given to the road. Some counties are resisting the demand for smaller stone, but those that are trying it will never want to go back to the bad old methods. On a previous occasion I referred to the most excellent gravel roads which Oroua County* in the vicinity of Feilding, is maintaining at the relatively small cost of £75 per mile per annum for an average daily traffic of about four hundred vehicles a day—which is a very considerable traffic for New Zealand rural roads. I was over a good many miles of these roads at Christmas time, and they were a real pleasure to ride on. Pahiatua County is working on similar lines, and its main road also is a treat to motor over. It is quite clear that we can get first-rate roads over all the gravel country without any big bills to pay for them. TTERE is a tip for motorists -*■ making round trips between Auckland and Wellington. The most favoured routes are the West Coast via Te Kuiti and New Plymouth, and the Napier-Taupo route. My tip is thus: Travel south by the West Coast route and north by the Napier-Taupo road, and not vice

versa. One reason for this is that in going south the Mokau River ferry is much easier to get,on to, as the approach on the north side of the river is over hard ground, whereas on the other bank one flounders into soft sand —decidedly soft at some states of the tide and after much traffic — it is often a real bumping match to climb on 'to the ferry. Another reason is that in going south one runs mostly downhill over the hilly road between Piopio and Mahoenui, which is not at present in the best of condition. On the Napier-Taupo road the ascents over the big hills are much more gradual when proceeding north to Taupo than when coming from it. The matter is not of great moment, but when it is a toss up which way to take the run, don’t toss, but do it the way I suggest. This tip is useful mostly to persons whose vehicles

are past their first pristine vigour, and those unfamiliar with the roads may be reminded that the West Coast route is, of course, infinitely easier travelling, either north or south, than that via Napier and d aupo.

A MOTORING publication of -CW more than usual interest, a copy of which has reached me, is the year book and road guide of the Wellington Automobile Club. This handy little volume of 220 pages, is distributed gratis by the club to its two thousand or so members, and copies are on sale to the public at half-a-crown apiece. The legal section is very complete, with some exceptionally useful information as to motorist’s obligations in case of accident. About twenty concisely packed pages deal with the good roads movement. A road guide section of

ninety pages covers adequately all the various main and the principal branch roads between Wellington and Auckland, with information as to telegraph hours, race days, day of weekly half-holiday, show dates, etc., at each town. There is a motor-camping section, with hints and tips and lists of attractive camping places on the main routes. Anglers and sportsmen are supplied with sporting information covering the Wellington district, as are trampers and climbers, and there is information as to rail and sea freights for motors, motor vehicle statistics and comprehensive distance tables. The enterprise of the Wellington Automobile Club in issuing so comprehensive an annual is to be commended — have forgotten to mention that there is in the book a sectional map of the North Island covering a score of sheets, with metalled and unmetalled road clearly shownbut the point of my reference to it is this: Isn’t there room for the North Island Motor Union to issue a general North Island volume for the convenience of the fifty thousand private car owners in the North Island? There is not the least doubt that there are thousands of car owners who would welcome an official motor annual covering the whole Island in a comprehensive manner.