HOW TO SEE AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1349, 2 March 1916, Page 40

HOW TO SEE AUCKLAND.

“When you go to Auckland be sure and look out for the Chase Tourist Sight-Seeing Co., Ltd.’s, char-a-banc,” was the remark made across a table

at Rotorua by a lady who had recently visted Auckland, to a lady friend on her way to spend a few days in the northern city. “The trips are delightful and the beauty of it all is that you have a guide that stands up in the char-a-banc and explains the trip, pointing out all the places of interest, and the passengers are all so very sociable.” There is no doubt the Chase Tour ist Sight-Seeing Co., Ltd., have made these trips very popular; it is the best way for a vistor to see Auckland and its surrounding districts. With a good guide, there is nothing of interest that escapes the eye. There are two trips a day; the morning trip commences at the Post Office, Lower Queen Street, at 10 a.m., and consists of a two hours’ drive round the city and inner suburbs, visiting all the public buildings, baths, parks, domains and harbour front. The

afternoon trips are much longer, and extend right out into the country and travel right across the isthmus from the East Coast to the West Coast, and visit such places as the Ellerslie racecourse —the gardens here are the prettiest in the Dominion; Cornwall Park, 500 acres; One Tree Hill Domain, 230 acres; Waikawai Park, 40 acres; Atkinson’s Park, Titirangi, 45 acres of native bush, including a number of kauri trees. From off the trig station at Titirangi is an unbroken view from east to west coasts; looking away to Tiri Island outside the entrance to the Waitemata Harbour on the East Coast and outside the Manukau bar on the West Coast. Turning northwards, one can see towards Helensville and the Waitakerei Ranges; turning south you look over the Manukau Harbour and the beautiful farming district of Mangere and away towards the Waikato. The Chase Tourist Sight-Seeing Co.,

Ltd., have well organised their trips, and their weekly programme provides a fresh trip for each day in the week, so that a visitor can go every day and see something fresh each day. They avoid as much as possible travelling over the same road twice, and never return by the same road by which they leave town, also avoiding tram track as much as possible, zig zagging through the suburbs. By this means there is very little of the town not visited, and without a doubt some of the garden suburbs of Auckland are well worth seeing. Auckland is hilly, but it has its charms —from off the top of every elevated point is a fresh view, particularly on a trip through Tamaki West to the lovely bays of Kohimarama and St. Heliers. From one point in particular is is possible on a clear day to see right away to the Coromandel Peninsular and see Castle Rock, which stands behind the township of Coromandel,

also out to Cape Colville across the Hauraki Gulf. The company’s charges are very moderate —the morning trips are 3s. and the afternoon trips are 55., including a cup of tea. Tea is served at the kiosks in Cornwall Park, Titirangi or St. Helier’s Bay. The char-a-banc is one of the very latest type, tastefully painted cream, comfortably upholstered in maroon, with spring motor cushions that make the riding very easy; electric bells and match strikers in each seat. The hood provides ample protection in wet weather and is removable in fine weather so as not to obstruct the view. Each seat is a little higher than the one in front.

We can thoroughly recommend these trips to visitors, and even Aucklanders will find it interesting to take a trip round and see their own town and mark the progress of the outer suburbs.

Mr. John W. Andrew, the managing director of the company, is the pioneer in this class of business, and has spared no time and expense to make the business a success.

The following visitors were at the Central Hotel last week: —Mr. and Mrs. D. Martin, Dunedin; Mr. V. J. Innes, Rotorua; Mr. A. B. Child, Dunedin; Mr. R. J. Bell, Blenheim; Mr. H. Wasken, Nelson; Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff; Mr. and Mrs. Baker-Gabb, Hastings; Mr. J. Millar, Hamilton, Mr. and Mrs. B. G. Bennett; Mr. Alex Bell, Morrinsville; Mr. Geo. Duncalf; Mr. R. S. Trevor; Mr. Richard Keene, Wellington; Mr. C. A. Sherriff, Gisborne; Mrs. A. R. D. Watson, Sydney; Mr. and Mrs. A. Bowman, Sydney; Mr. and Mrs. A. T. Pritchard, Sydney; Mrs. Aidworth; Mr. Jas. Webberley, Bondi, Sydney; Mr. and Mrs. Glasson, Orange, Sydney; Mr. Gaudrey, New York; Mr. Geo. Stewart, Sydney; Mr. J. D. McDonald, Sydney; Mr. Matthew C. Coates, Melbourne; Mrs. E. F. Johnson and Master Johnson; Mrs. W. A. Brodie; Mr. C. A. Knowles and Miss Knowles, Makarau; Mr. U. R. Brabazon, late of Hamilton; Mr. A. J. Hollis, Wellington; Mr. Wells, Cambridge; Messrs. Blundell and Hampshire, Sydney; Mr. G. D. Davy, Sydney; Mr. R. M. Martin, Rotorua; Mr. Robson, Sydney; Mr. Sydney C. Hancock, Wellington; Mr. Hills, Wairamarama; Mr. J. D. Sole, New Plymouth; Mr. G. A. Corney, New Plymouth; Mr. H. W. Cottier, New Plymouth; Mr. R. B. Totman, Rangatekei; Mr. R. H. Skipworth, Wellington; Mr. A. Rose, Christchurch; Mr. Oscar Anderson, Christchurch; Mr. H. FeatherstonHaugh, Waitetuna; Mr. J. R. Hayward, Christchurch; Mr. Sydney R. Cowley, Christchurch; Mr. T. W. Kirk, Wellington; Mr. F. S. Pope, Wellington; Mr. Eric Young, Hamilton; Mr. T. Alston Coleman, Gisborne; Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, Seattle, U.S.A.; Mr. H. F. Moss, Dunedin; Mr. T. V. Healy, Melbourne; Mr. Percy Smith, Sydney.

Mr. Charles Bayly, runholder, of Taranaki and North Auckland, who went to England to enlist, has been accepted for service.

Mr. Sam Dawson, formerly of the Post and Telegraph Department at Thames, left by the Niagara on her last trip to Sydney en route for England. He intends to join the Navy.

Mr. G. A. Streiff, Swiss Consul for New Zealand and Mrs. Streiff, left Auckland by the Niagara last week en route to Honolulu, the United States, and Switzerland. Mr. W. J. Pugh will act as Swiss Consul during Mr. Strieff’s absence.

Mr. J. R. Grey, a well-known Wellington yachtsman, and the owner of the Syren, has passed the captain’s examination of the British Board of Trade. The certificate which he has obtained is only granted to owners of ocean-going yachts, and he is the first yachtsman in Australasia to obtain the certificate under the regulations. Mr. Grey has qualified in order to volunteer for service in England.

From a traveller’s point of view, one of the most up-to-date and comfortable hotels in Canterbury is the Commercial, West Oxford. Mr. F. W. Glasson, the proprietor, who is now a well-known identity in the district, has, by his ready tact and energy, built for himself a reputation of being able to cater to the travelling public “second to none in the South Island.’’ The Oxford is situated 40 miles from Christchurch, and is a popular resort for motorists, the district being possessed of good roads and abounding in charming scenery. The Waimakariri and Ashley Gorges are in the immediate vicinity. Mr. Glasson has recently had the hotel renovat®d and refurnished, and visitors are assured of every comfort and attention. The cuisine is under the personal supervision of Mrs. Glasson.

In Australia, as in New Zealand, lakes disappear and re-appear, but we

here cannot boast of accompaniments of cataclysmic spectacles of fire and brimstone (says an Australian writer). Our lakes that disappear do so slowly, as the result of drought, which shows only cracked, parched earth. Lake George, once the largest lake in New South Wales, dried up nearly twenty years ago. When full it was about 25 miles long and about eight miles broad. For nearly a quarter of a century it has been a sheep-walk. Before it dried up its waters teemed with fish, and it was the home of countless wildfowl that made it a sportsman’s paradise and a great asset to the Queanbeyan district. Then came a succession of dry seasons. Evaporation and rapid drainage took away all the water. The bed became overgrown with a thick coating of trefoil, and the Government offered the area on leasehold to graziers, who soon had it stocked with thousands of sheep. However, there is now more water in the lake than it has held for two decades, and it is confidently expected that before long it will be again completely filled.

The Government training ship Amokura recently made the usual visit of inspection to the Kermadec Islands. The whole group was visited, but there were no signs of any castaways at any of the islands. Landings were made at all the islands except one. All the food depots were inspected, and their contents found to be in good order, there apparently having been no interference with them since the vessel’s last visit 12 months ago. There are at present 58 boys undergoing training on the vessel, and all appear well and happy. They were landed at Sunday Island, and found plenty of fruit, the remains of an orchard planted by former settlers on the island. It is now upwards of two years since anybody resided there, the last settlers being some members of the Bell family, who lived there for over twenty years. Fish were plentiful, and the boys thoroughly enjoyed their visit.

The Postmaster-General of Australia, the Hon. W. Webster, arrived in Auckland last week by the Niagara.

Mr. H. Webber, a director of a Johannesburg bank, and Mrs. Webber are visiting New Zealand at present. After visiting Mount Cook, the Cold Lakes, and Milford Sound, they will visit Rotorua and Auckland, leaving by the Niagara in April for Honolulu and San Francisco. After visiting the States they are to tour through South America.

A gentleman who knows his Europe, and is now paying a flying visit to Dunedin after journeying through the East, and up as far as Vladivostock, has no doubt as to the result of the war. He told an “Otago Daily Times” reporter that he was simply amazed at what he saw at Vladivostock in the landing of munitions from Japan. This material is passing in practically an endless train across Siberia to the Russian front. The trans-Siberian line has been greatly added to since the war, and the work which has been done on the Petrograd-Archangel line should also have a very real effect in enabling munitions to be carried speedily from the northern port to the Eastern part. The visitor stated that in Singapore conscription had been introduced, and that in several other towns in the East compulsory service was in vogue.

Mr. Richard Teece, general manager of the A.M.P. Society, who has been on a visit to New Zealand, returned to Sydney last week. “My impression of New Zealand,” Mr. Teece said to a “Dominion” interviewer, “is that it is on a wave of prosperity. There is just the fear that a period of quietness may follow. The splendid prices for raw products have had the effect of sending the price of land up to a high figure —much more than it is worth, in my opinion. Certainly no farm lands in Australia attain to anywhere near these prices, and Australia is prosperous, too. In town values, too, there seems to be cause for thought.

For example, in Wanganui, prices of land are as high as in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, and there is no comparison between the two places as far as values are concerned.” Mr. Teece added, however, that in many directions and in certain districts the increases, within certain bounds, were justified. This was the case with the land near Auckland, much of which had been considered almost worthless. Now it was successfully used for dairying, fruit-growing, and grazing. As a result of this, Auckland had bounded ahead, and the advance appeared to be permanent. Mr. Teece considered that for a man of energy and ability there is no country like New Zealand. Ther was always a living for a good man, while in good times there was much more. Farmers and others did not experience the same vicissitudes of fortune which occurred in Australia in times of drought.

Mr. William Wiggins, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Wiggins, of Thames, is now serving on a British monitor, the Princess Eugene, operating on the Belgian coast. The young Thames man, an engineer by trade, went Home some time ago to enter the Navy. * * ♦ * California may best be described as a great walled garden with one side facing the sea. It is separated from those unfortunate regions which lie at the back of it by the most remarkable garden wall in all the world. The wall, which is on an average two miles high, is 500 miles long, having Mount San Jacinto for its southern and Mount Shasta for its northern corner. At the back of the garden rises, peak on peak, range on range, the snow-clad Sierra Nevada. Gradually descending, the high peaks give place to lesser ones, the ranges dwindle to foothills, the foothills run out into canons and grassy valleys, the valley slopes become clothed with forests, the forests merge into groves of gnarled, fantastic live oaks, and these in turn to gorse-covered dunes which sweep down to meet the sea. The whole of this vast garden—mountain, forest, and shore —is dotted with accommodations for the visitor which are adapted to all tastes and all purses and which range from vast caravansaries which rival those of Ostend and Aix-le-Bains, of iNarragansett and Lake Placid, to tented cities pitched beneath the whispering redwoods or beside the murmuring sea. Unless you have seen the Lago di Garda at its bluest, unless you have loitered beneath the palms which line the Promenades des Anglais at Nice, unless you have bathed in the white sands of Waikiki, unless you have motored along the Corniche Road, with the sun-flecked Mediterranean on one hand and the dim blue outline of the Alps on the other, you . can not picture with any degree of accuracy the beauties of this enchanted littoral. . . . From Riverside, where the California Riviera begins, to the Golden Gate,

where it ends, is 600 miles, and every foot of that 600 miles is through a veritable garden of the Lord.

Easter Island, a lonely spot in the Pacific, was visited on Christmas Day by a British ship. She was boarded by the resident governor, who holds an extended lease of the island from the Chilean Government. On ranging alongside the cruiser the boat used by the resident governor was found to be one left there by the raiding German cruiser Prinz Eitel Friedrich. It was evidently abandoned by the raider when she hurriedly put ashore some distressed sailors belonging to British vessels she had captured and sunk. The story was that Admiral von Spee touched the island a few weeks prior to meeting his fate off the Falklands, and replenished supplies for his squadron. He purchased everything he could in the way of food, and left paper money behind as settlement of the claim. It was only just after the Scharnhorst left Easter Island that the Governor became aware of the war, and he hurriedly left in his schooner for the mainland to cash the paper money left behind by the German admiral. The statement is made that the demand for payment was met by the German Consul at a Chilean port just before word was received that the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Leipzig had been sunk by the British squadron off the Falkland Islands.

A characteristic incident in connection with American journalism is related by Mr. J. Cunninghame, who has just returned from a visit to California. The “Manawatu Standard” says that while in San Francisco he was greatly surprised on day to notice extras, printed in red ink, being issued from the office of “The Call” newspaper. The extras were headed, “Irishmen escaping from conscription in New Zealand,” and referred to the shipload of men who left for America

prior to restrictions being brought in by the Government to prevent military eligibles leaving without the Government’s consent. Being of opinion that the information was not correct, and cast a slur on a patriotic section of New Zealand’s citizens, Mr. Cunninghame called on the editor of “The Call,” and explained that the Prime Minister of New Zealand was an Irishman, as also was the Leader of the late Opposition, and both had sons at the front, that he (Mr. Cunninghame) was also an Irishman, and had a son fighting at Gallipoli, whilst hundreds of other Irishmen had volunteered for all our Reinforcements, and were a most loyal section of our community. The editor said the information came from one of the men who came from New Zealand and that he had made the excuse that he was leaving the Dominion to join the British Army, when, as a matter of fact, he intended to settle in America.