The King’s Highway

Ladies' Mirror, Volume V, Issue 6, 1 December 1926, Page 63

The King’s Highway

* ::% A Sportsman's Camp at Makau Inlet, Lake Waikaremoana « «

A MOTORING CAUSERIE « bj Sancfvo

car owners, with the holidays just ahead, are thinking hard about the long trail of the year, when, with workaday cares left behind, they roam the countryside for the big outing of twelve months. The first question, usually soon disposed of by most of us, is what sort of a holiday it is to a big round tour; a run to some point of special interest, with the car used thereafter for excursions in the neighbourhood and the return home; or a quiet, leisurely perambulation to no very distant areas. Then there is the question of whether our peregrination is to be via a chain of de luxe hotels or at any rate such hostelries as are at least remote from that description—or whether we shall live and dine al fresco and couch at dewy eve on the none-too-soft bosom of Mother Earth. * * * ♦ One cannot, alas, prescribe a holiday that will give universal satisfaction. To rheumaticky joints, the big open spaces of the Tonga-

riro National Park, and the mountain rambles on Egmont are attractive more in theory than in practice. To active youth, on the other hand, the tranquil placidity of a real good loaf in, say, pretty little Oleoroire might pale at an early stage. Where the party is all of one mind the choice is fairly easy, but when it is of mixed inclination more circumspection is necessary if everybody is to return home feeling they have had the time of their lives. Motorists who have not done the Rotorua and Taupo run will doubtless be keen to visit those parts, and will be well advised to do so by one of the various routes. For a family tour, with father to foot the bill for everybody, an extended sojourn in the thermal district has a way, however, of being far from inexpensive, unless great restraint is shown in the. number of excursions. There are numerous touches of 2/-, S/-, 7/6 per head, and so on, to see the sights en route, and the sum

total, multiplied by, say, four may grow formidable long before it is felt that everything worth while has been viewed. * * * * ’}•“ People in the southern portion of the island have so far failed properly to appreciate the attractions of Te Aroha as the objective of a summer tour. Here there is something to please everybody, young and old, active and lazy. The boys can amuse themselves scaling Te Aroha Mountain’s 3126 feet, and enjoy the glorious far-flung panorama over the Bay of Plenty and the Waikato Country. Mother will find the beautiful sanitorium domain, with its croquet lawns and shady nooks in the gardens to her taste. Father will appreciate the bowling green, and the young boy the tennis courts, and everybody will be keen on the bathing and boating in the winding, willowfringed river. Then, too, excursions may be made to the Hauraki goldfields region, and the mining areas of the rugged Karangahake Gorge

viewed. Finally, to the south there is quite a good day’s outing to see the Wairere stream leap its 360 feet down from the ranges in two great jumps. * * * * ; On the East Coast a good holiday ground will be found at Waikaremoana. En route, the fine Te Rcinga Falls may be visiteda side run of about fifteen miles from Fraser town on the Wairoa-Wai-karemoana road. Mr. Pember Reeves thought those falls so beautiful that when he first published his well-known book on New Zealand, “Aotearoa,” he put in a picture of them as a frontispiece. Even today, nearly thirty years later, few New Zealanders find their way to this beauty spot. The road is metalled, and if you are on a motor camping tour, you will feel well repaid by an over-night halt near Te Reinga. Before climbing the hill to Waikaremoana, the power house is worth inspection, and when

reaching the summit of 2000 feet, where the waters of this remarkable lake extend miles away before one, another little excursion should be made. This is to go down the hillside on foot a few hundred feet to the bush-clad gullies, where the streams by which the lake discharges gush out from the hillside, some of them almost immediately disappearing underground again for short distances. * * * * To see the best of Waikaremoana one needs plenty of launching, for the beauties of this inland sea are hidden in long winding arms. To view as much of the lake as possible without too great expense, Waikaremoana should be visited at holiday time, when parties are made up and the launching charges are on the basis of so much per head. If one has to hire a launch for special trips for small parties the cost is apt to become burdensome long before the scenery begins to pall. * * * * Having thrown out a stray suggestion or two, in the way as to the locale of the holiday trip, it is time we begin to think about the car. We will assume that the vehicle in which we are about to embark has been maintained in reasonably good order. If it hasn't, we will all be in for a much pleasanter time if we took the train. Anyway, the question is, what does the car want before we start. The engine, we take it, is not crying aloud to be decarbonised, nor suffering from any mysterious loss of compression, and the valves are not overdue for regrinding, nor is there a horrible thump coining from anywhere. However, we may very well have the spark plugs out and take a look at them, cleaning them and adjusting the points if necessary. If the plugs are aged, a few shillings on a new set may give extra pep for a long tour. * * * * While we have the bonnet up we will have a look at the fan belt, to see that it is in good condition, and properly adjusted, and we will also cast our eyes over the wiring lay-out, seeing that all connections are tight, and looking for frayed places that, just when we don’t want it, give out and leave us with no headlights in the inky, wet night, or maybe bring the engine to a mysterious obstinate stop in some' depressing spot far from home. The engine, naturally, we will drain off and refill with fresh oil, and we will also look to the gear box and differential, and do the routine greasing and oiling with extra thoroughness, keeping our eyes open as we do so. This is the time when all sorts of little things are noticed that attention at once prevents, maybe, from becoming big things. * * * * Being lazy myself, and being acquainted with a trustworthy garage man, I run my bus in be-

fore my annual tour, and he gets her over a pit and in quite a short space of time has run over and tested for tightness pretty well every nut in the outfit; jacked the wheels and tested them for play; tried out the brakes, looked to the battery, and run over any little etceteras that he and I have had in mind from past experience. . This over, all that remains is to get the touring gear aboard, and we start out in a —if not quite a certain hope—sonable expectation of a troublefree tour, with no wretched rattle developing in a new place every day of the run, and often distressing symptoms occurring. There are pleasanter ways of spending one’s leisure, when all is said and done, than in forming part of the ensemble of one of those decorative groups around the numerous stranded flivvers by the roadside. Finally, don’t make your holiday tour, if you can help it, the occasion on which you involuntarily finish off a three parts worn set of tyres. I have known husbands whose language on such occasions shocked even their wives. * * * * The next thing is what we are going to take on our tour. And here, as a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Motorcars, may I make my little plea? Have mercy! Don’t break the back of your willing beast. Don’t take all the vim and life out of your engine with a gross overload. Don’t strain your chassis and crush down your springs by converting your car into an imitation pantechnicon. Surely whatever there is in all this wilderness of luggage and .gear, there is something that somebody can do without. If they can’t, at least be sure that you carry a baggage expert, who is willing to arise before the lark leaves his downy nest, and stow, secure, check, and tally the lumber, so that the journey may be resumed not later than mid-day at the worst. * * * * And having said so much, dear reader, may I wish you the jollies: Christmas, and a holiday tour that remains as bright a memory as ever fancy painted it in advance. Edison says that he can’t stop work. With such a famous inventor baffled, we suppose the thing’s got to go on. * * * * The taxi is considered the least dangerous of all forms of city transport. You can’t very well fall out of a window that you can’t open. * * * * Pageant of Progress In 1895: “Look, there’s a motorcar ! ’ In 1925: “Look, there’s a horse!” In 1955: “Look, there’s a pedestrian !”