CHAPTER IXTHREE WEEKS IN WESTLANDSouth Westland is a land apart from the rest of New Zealand—cut off by the mountains—an enchanted land, which if you once learn to know and love you never wish to leave, and when you do go away, you must always be wanting to return. It is a land of mountain and forest, of glacier and waterfall and rushing river, of blue sky and wide ocean. I first saw it in late autumn, when day after day the sun shone with steady radiance, warming you through and through as if it were still summer; bell-birds and tuis called to one another in the trees, and merry fantails darted hither and thither in the sun, catching sandflies, and spreading out their tails of brown or black-and-white stripes, like miniature fans. The district has a yearly rainfall of over a hundred inches, and to this owes the extreme luxuriance of its forests and the beauty of its many streams. It is a different world from the Alpine region on the east, where the mountainsare grand with a grandeur of snowy summit and bare brown rock, and trees are few and stunted. In Westland you see the same peaks of snow, but they rise behind ranges clad in stately forests, shrouded often in mysterious violet tints; the glaciers which fall steeply down the mountain sides are bordered by tall trees; in summer the crimson rata blooms against the snow, and in May little white orchids were in flower only a few feet from the ice.I went to Waiho Gorge intending to spend a week there, but stayed for three, and the following year I returned and remained for two months. The hotel stands in a cleared space in the forest, on a gentle slope overlooking the Waiho river valley—a wide flat with grass and trees. The Franz Josef Glacier is three miles away, and the road to it is no rough and stony track, but a moss-grown path through bush of more than usual loveliness. Here the sunlight, filtering through interlacing branches, shines on great cushions of green moss, on the rich green fronds of many crape ferns with curling feathery tips, and everywhere soil and tree-stems alike areclothed with ferns, lichens, liverworts and mosses in bewildering profusion and most satisfying beauty.The Franz Josef Glacier is three-quarters of a mile wide and eight miles long, and flows to within six hundred feet of sea level, it is fed by another smaller glacier, and by vast snowfields lying among the mountains at its head. Its bed is far steeper than the Tasman, and the rate of flow much quicker, so the surface changes continually, and is broken up into the most extraordinary ridges and pinnacles of every conceivable shape and size; the pinnacles stand up like great teeth of ice, crevasses vary in depth from ten feet to a hundred, and the narrow ridges between are often cut short by other crevasses at right angles, making climbing among them tedious and difficult. A few years ago a hanging gallery of wooden steps on iron staples was erected in the hillside near the terminal face, forty feet above the level of the glacier; within six months the glacier rose up in a gigantic ice-wave and tore down the gallery like a child's toy; it then began to subside, and, when I saw it, was almost at its former level; but the gallery has notbeen replaced, and a few tattered planks still hang from the cliff.The Franz Josef is almost free from moraine, though there are a few grey rocks and stones and coarse silt scattered about on the ice above the terminal face, which in the centre of the glacier is a sheer ice-wall, two hundred feet high. The Waiho River rises here, in an amphitheatre of blue and white ice, sometimes at one point, sometimes at another; great blocks of ice are constantly breaking away at the snout, and the river escapes wherever it can force its way. The ice of the Franz Josef has the most beautiful colouring; there are caves of clearest crystal, or of white ice faintly tinged with blue, and many moulins and ice-bridges of an intense, bright blue. From Waiho, the Franz Josef forms the nearest highway across the Alps into Canterbury—a long climb up the glacier and over the snowy saddle at its head, then down the steep slope of another glacier to the Tasman.On my first visit, under the careful guidance of a Westland guide whose home is at Waiho, and who knows and loves the glacier andmountains as his intimate friends, I explored the lower slopes of the Franz Josef. We went together as far up the glacier as a hut which had just been built, three hours' climb from the terminal face.At this point a rocky mountain spur juts out into the glacier—Cape Defiance it is aptly named—and on this spur, some few hundred feet above the glacier, a little platform has been levelled, and a hut of wood and iron put up. It is like the hut by the Hooker Glacier on the other side of the Alps, and is divided by a wooden partition into two rooms, with six bunks in each room, but instead of an oil stove, the Cape Defiance Hut has an open fireplace made of flat grey stones from the mountain side. The hut is perfectly fitted together; and every strip of corrugated iron and wood used in it has been carried on men's backs up the glacier in loads of fifty to sixty pounds—there is no other way, and the two men who did it all needed to be mountaineers as well as carpenters.This hut was put up at Government expense, it is provisioned and kept going by private enterprise, and the guiding in Westland is in private hands.Round the hut grow ferns and a bushy tangle of ribbon-wood, broom and coprosma trees, and from its windows you look up towards the head of the glacier or across to the mountains on the opposite side, and on the far side of a small tributary glacier behind Cape Defiance, you hear a waterfall thundering down from a height of a thousand feet. The first winter snow had fallen and the whole glacier was covered with fresh snow, making walking easier over the slippery ice, but as we climbed higher the snow was deeper—almost up to my knees—and when after sunset we reached the hut, we found it half-buried in snow, with snow-drifts two or three feet deep all round it.The snow was speedily shovelled away, and a cheerful log fire soon blazed on the open hearth.At eight o'clock that night the moon rose, full and brilliant, and from the door of the hut we saw glacier and mountains distinct in the moonlight: at our feet the full width of the glacier, its uneven edges stretching upwards to a great ice-fall of white and towering pinnacles, its lower slopes vanishing into the night:meeting the snow of the glacier was the fresh white snow of the mountains rising from it—an unbroken expanse of snow low down, but above a mingling of brown rock and whiteness against the blue sky, and the blue was a deep violet shade, changing to sapphire where the clear moon shone serenely. Very few stars were visible, but one planet gleamed like a lamp over the crest of the mountain opposite, and above our heads shone the Southern Cross—the five stars of the cross guarded by two bright pointers, shining even more brilliantly than the Cross itself—while over the glacier, behind the topmost pinnacles, floated a few soft, white, fleecy clouds.I was the first lady to sleep in the Cape Defiance Hut, and found my bunk most comfortable with mattress and blankets, and for pillow, a spare blanket slipped inside a pillow-slip. I was offered a hot water bottle, but declined that, and though water in my room froze during the night, I was perfectly warm.Next morning before I got up my guide brought me a cup of tea and a biscuit, then hot water in a billy for me to wash in. Forbreakfast I had a poached egg served on hot buttered toast, and cups of delicious coffee—and all these luxuries on the edge of a glacier!The snow was too deep for us to go higher on the glacier, so we climbed a short way up the mountain behind the hut, where we found a convenient bare patch, sheltered by an overhanging rock, and could sit down on the rucksack and study the view.We were only two thousand feet above sea level, and there in front of us was the Tasman Sea, its irregular coastline sixteen miles distant; the sea was a smooth grey, backed by level grey and yellow clouds—a quiet, lonely sea, and on its surface no faintest trace of fishing boat or steamer.Just within the coastline glimmered the waters of a peaceful lagoon, and to the right, among the trees, shone a large lake, the surface ruffled by wind, which gave the effect of a fringe of snow on the far side. Between the foot of the glacier and the sea flowed the Waiho River, blue amid the pearly shingle of its wide bed. There is flat land sparsely covered with rough grass and shrub on both sides of the Waiho, then between river and seastretch ridge behind ridge of low bush-covered hills, the furthest jutting out steeply into the ocean.Beyond the glacier, on the opposite side to where we sat, lies a long level ridge, densely clothed with forest trees, and over them lay the snow gradually melting in the hot sun. Behind the wooded range are higher mountains, and at right angles to them, covering the lower levels, are miles of forest, deep green at first, paling through greens and greys to dimmest grey, where the line of forest meets the dim, grey sea.Looking up the glacier, we could see two rocky peaks which stand some miles above the head, but not the actual head of the glacier, or the snowfield which feeds it. As we saw it that morning the Franz Josef was one magnificent ice-fall—the topmost ridge of huge ice-crags sharply outlined against the blue, and then a steep descent of rough broken ice, and over all a spotless mantle of snow, white and glistening in the sunshine: mountain and glacier and snow-sprinkled forests combined to make one glorious scene of wintry splendour.i129FRANZ JOSEF AND ALMER GLACIERS FROM CAPE DEFIANCE.To face page 110Back to the hut for an early lunch, after which we washed plates and cups, swept the floor, folded up the blankets, sorted out the provisions, put out the fire with a sprinkling of snow, and with key in the lock outside, we left the hut to its winter solitude.Twenty miles from the Franz Josef Glacier is another, the Fox, which is eleven miles long, and this too, like the Franz Josef, comes down among the forest and ends in a winding river.To reach the Fox glacier, I rode on horseback through the bush, down the "Main South Road"—such a pretty road—worn bare in places by waggons and horses' feet, but for the most part soft with grass and moss, with grassy margins bordering the forest. After about eight miles, the road becomes a mere track, steep and often stony, and across it are cut shallow water-courses, lined with stones and the stems of tree-ferns; the whole road is continually being improved and widened, and in a few years settlers will be able to drive a carriage where they must now either ride or walk. At intervals by the side of the track are huts, usually of corrugated iron: one was of logs roofed with shingles, andone of fern stems, and along a section on which several men were working, we saw tents of canvas or white calico. The permanent iron huts are put up at Government expense, for the use primarily of surveyors, gold prospectors or roadmen, but any traveller is at liberty to light a fire and spend the night in one of them. At one such hut, standing in a grass paddock, fenced in with barbed wire, we dismounted, turned the horses loose to feed and walked in: it was a small, one-roomed hut, and had four wooden bunks stocked with straw and bracken for bedding, a wide open fireplace, and two wooden benches. We soon had a good fire of dry logs, and when the billy boiled we made tea, and ate our lunch in the sunny paddock, surrounded by bush-covered hills and the remoteness of the forest world.The aloofness of the "back blocks" is amazing, so vast and yet so friendly; in the forest itself you have only the birds for company, and they are all fearless and trustful, and unsuspecting of any danger from stick or gun: sometimes near a homestead you see cows or sheep grazing by tracks or river-beds, but the only native four-footed animals in allNew Zealand are two varieties of bats, and its forests have no snakes or hurtful creatures of any kind. The people, too, who live among the Westland forests, share in the friendliness of the forest birds; even alone on a bush track at night, I always felt quite sure that if I did meet anyone—roadman or surveyor—he would simply be very glad to see me and would do anything in his power to help me.The Main South Road goes up three steep hills and down into the valleys between, over rivers and creeks, and always it is a forest road, and we looked through brown trunks and twining lianes and waving fern-fronds upon trees of every shade of green, down in the valleys and up the hillsides, and often some glorious snowy peak crowning the forest. Wherever the hill has been cut away in making the track the once bare soil is covered with ferns and mosses. We rode by walls of green flecked with red, where long glossy ferns and trailing festons of lycopodiums, all copper and green, stretched out to touch us as we passed; and down the cliffs tumbled sparkling waterfalls to join the brawlingstreams below. At sunset, we came to the brow of a long steep hill, overlooking a wide fertile plain—two silvery rivers winding through it; in the distance low bush-hills, and over them as the sun went down, a pink haze, through which the dark trees showed as through a filmy transparency, in front of a clear sky, blue tinged with green.At Weheka, the homestead where we stayed, I learnt a little about life in remote places: here we were eighty-seven miles from train or doctor, but always, through the telephone, in touch with the world outside. When anyone is ill, the doctor is rung up at Ross or Hokitika, and symptoms are described, and remedies are sent by the next mail—a doctor's visit costs forty or fifty pounds, and in case of emergency each settler must be his own doctor. For children in these country districts Government provides "household schools," allowing £6 a head per annum for three or more children of school age, and a teacher is sent from the nearest school, or sometimes the mother of the children is the teacher; when there are as many as seven children to betaught, a schoolroom is built for them near the homestead, and desks and maps are provided.Round Weheka a good deal of land has been cleared and sown with grass, and our host was shortly sending two hundred bullocks to the market at Hokitika, over a hundred miles away.This farmhouse grows every year more modern and up-to-date. The original homestead was a small one-roomed hut planted in the forest.The present house is roomy and comfortable, with large sitting-room and many bedrooms, the kitchen is a big room apart from the rest, and yet another building is the bathroom, in which is a large bath and a cold water tap, and near all the rest is the Government school. When I first stayed at Weheka, music was provided by an excellent gramophone, but the following year I found a new piano, and one daughter was learning to play the piano, and another the violin.At first the house was lighted by oil lamps and candles, now electric light has been installed, and an electric globe greets you atthe garden-gate. There is only one other house near the homestead, but the Main South Road goes on bravely for thirteen miles to the next house, and beyond that to another settlement fifty miles further south.The day following my arrival at Weheka, I was taken on the Fox Glacier.Compared with the Franz Josef the Fox Glacier carries a quantity of moraine, the terminal face slopes gently down to the valley, and above it are boulders and stones, of every size; many of them are covered with bright red lichen, which makes them look as though they had been sprinkled with brick-dust. The lower ice is in smooth layers, and when you have safely crossed the tempestuous Fox River and scrambled over the loose rubble of the moraine, walking on the glacier itself presents no difficulty.At one time this glacier stood at a far higher level, and one high rock-face has deep grooves worn in it by the stones carried down in distant ages. Under the rock with its deep grooves, the ice has been forced into huge curves through the variation in its rate offlow: the centre of the glacier moves most quickly, and the ice at the edge has been left behind and wedged against the mountain side: in its efforts to move on, the ice river has become twisted into the strangest contortions, and you can trace cause and effect with unmistakeable clearness.From a point only a mile up we had a splendid view towards the head of the glacier. Ridges of rock and snow stand above it, and on their right is one tall white peak, beyond which the glacier rises and curves round in a sweeping ice-fall of pinnacles, all jagged white ice shot with green. Looking back down the valley, we saw the sea lying in grey streaks on the distant horizon.Forest and ice meet at the glacier's edge; we boiled ice-water in the billy, and sat on a grey pebbly beach, under the shelter of a big tree-veronica.The day had been grey and gloomy, but at sunset, as we left the glacier, the sun shone out, first lighting up the yellow autumn leaves of the fuchsia trees as from the glow of a fiery furnace, then flooding all the forest withgolden light, so that for a few minutes all the bush was turned to gold, with the glacier behind part white and part grey shadow, until the sun sank below the horizon, and all was grey.
THREE WEEKS IN WESTLAND
South Westland is a land apart from the rest of New Zealand—cut off by the mountains—an enchanted land, which if you once learn to know and love you never wish to leave, and when you do go away, you must always be wanting to return. It is a land of mountain and forest, of glacier and waterfall and rushing river, of blue sky and wide ocean. I first saw it in late autumn, when day after day the sun shone with steady radiance, warming you through and through as if it were still summer; bell-birds and tuis called to one another in the trees, and merry fantails darted hither and thither in the sun, catching sandflies, and spreading out their tails of brown or black-and-white stripes, like miniature fans. The district has a yearly rainfall of over a hundred inches, and to this owes the extreme luxuriance of its forests and the beauty of its many streams. It is a different world from the Alpine region on the east, where the mountainsare grand with a grandeur of snowy summit and bare brown rock, and trees are few and stunted. In Westland you see the same peaks of snow, but they rise behind ranges clad in stately forests, shrouded often in mysterious violet tints; the glaciers which fall steeply down the mountain sides are bordered by tall trees; in summer the crimson rata blooms against the snow, and in May little white orchids were in flower only a few feet from the ice.
I went to Waiho Gorge intending to spend a week there, but stayed for three, and the following year I returned and remained for two months. The hotel stands in a cleared space in the forest, on a gentle slope overlooking the Waiho river valley—a wide flat with grass and trees. The Franz Josef Glacier is three miles away, and the road to it is no rough and stony track, but a moss-grown path through bush of more than usual loveliness. Here the sunlight, filtering through interlacing branches, shines on great cushions of green moss, on the rich green fronds of many crape ferns with curling feathery tips, and everywhere soil and tree-stems alike areclothed with ferns, lichens, liverworts and mosses in bewildering profusion and most satisfying beauty.
The Franz Josef Glacier is three-quarters of a mile wide and eight miles long, and flows to within six hundred feet of sea level, it is fed by another smaller glacier, and by vast snowfields lying among the mountains at its head. Its bed is far steeper than the Tasman, and the rate of flow much quicker, so the surface changes continually, and is broken up into the most extraordinary ridges and pinnacles of every conceivable shape and size; the pinnacles stand up like great teeth of ice, crevasses vary in depth from ten feet to a hundred, and the narrow ridges between are often cut short by other crevasses at right angles, making climbing among them tedious and difficult. A few years ago a hanging gallery of wooden steps on iron staples was erected in the hillside near the terminal face, forty feet above the level of the glacier; within six months the glacier rose up in a gigantic ice-wave and tore down the gallery like a child's toy; it then began to subside, and, when I saw it, was almost at its former level; but the gallery has notbeen replaced, and a few tattered planks still hang from the cliff.
The Franz Josef is almost free from moraine, though there are a few grey rocks and stones and coarse silt scattered about on the ice above the terminal face, which in the centre of the glacier is a sheer ice-wall, two hundred feet high. The Waiho River rises here, in an amphitheatre of blue and white ice, sometimes at one point, sometimes at another; great blocks of ice are constantly breaking away at the snout, and the river escapes wherever it can force its way. The ice of the Franz Josef has the most beautiful colouring; there are caves of clearest crystal, or of white ice faintly tinged with blue, and many moulins and ice-bridges of an intense, bright blue. From Waiho, the Franz Josef forms the nearest highway across the Alps into Canterbury—a long climb up the glacier and over the snowy saddle at its head, then down the steep slope of another glacier to the Tasman.
On my first visit, under the careful guidance of a Westland guide whose home is at Waiho, and who knows and loves the glacier andmountains as his intimate friends, I explored the lower slopes of the Franz Josef. We went together as far up the glacier as a hut which had just been built, three hours' climb from the terminal face.
At this point a rocky mountain spur juts out into the glacier—Cape Defiance it is aptly named—and on this spur, some few hundred feet above the glacier, a little platform has been levelled, and a hut of wood and iron put up. It is like the hut by the Hooker Glacier on the other side of the Alps, and is divided by a wooden partition into two rooms, with six bunks in each room, but instead of an oil stove, the Cape Defiance Hut has an open fireplace made of flat grey stones from the mountain side. The hut is perfectly fitted together; and every strip of corrugated iron and wood used in it has been carried on men's backs up the glacier in loads of fifty to sixty pounds—there is no other way, and the two men who did it all needed to be mountaineers as well as carpenters.
This hut was put up at Government expense, it is provisioned and kept going by private enterprise, and the guiding in Westland is in private hands.
Round the hut grow ferns and a bushy tangle of ribbon-wood, broom and coprosma trees, and from its windows you look up towards the head of the glacier or across to the mountains on the opposite side, and on the far side of a small tributary glacier behind Cape Defiance, you hear a waterfall thundering down from a height of a thousand feet. The first winter snow had fallen and the whole glacier was covered with fresh snow, making walking easier over the slippery ice, but as we climbed higher the snow was deeper—almost up to my knees—and when after sunset we reached the hut, we found it half-buried in snow, with snow-drifts two or three feet deep all round it.
The snow was speedily shovelled away, and a cheerful log fire soon blazed on the open hearth.
At eight o'clock that night the moon rose, full and brilliant, and from the door of the hut we saw glacier and mountains distinct in the moonlight: at our feet the full width of the glacier, its uneven edges stretching upwards to a great ice-fall of white and towering pinnacles, its lower slopes vanishing into the night:meeting the snow of the glacier was the fresh white snow of the mountains rising from it—an unbroken expanse of snow low down, but above a mingling of brown rock and whiteness against the blue sky, and the blue was a deep violet shade, changing to sapphire where the clear moon shone serenely. Very few stars were visible, but one planet gleamed like a lamp over the crest of the mountain opposite, and above our heads shone the Southern Cross—the five stars of the cross guarded by two bright pointers, shining even more brilliantly than the Cross itself—while over the glacier, behind the topmost pinnacles, floated a few soft, white, fleecy clouds.
I was the first lady to sleep in the Cape Defiance Hut, and found my bunk most comfortable with mattress and blankets, and for pillow, a spare blanket slipped inside a pillow-slip. I was offered a hot water bottle, but declined that, and though water in my room froze during the night, I was perfectly warm.
Next morning before I got up my guide brought me a cup of tea and a biscuit, then hot water in a billy for me to wash in. Forbreakfast I had a poached egg served on hot buttered toast, and cups of delicious coffee—and all these luxuries on the edge of a glacier!
The snow was too deep for us to go higher on the glacier, so we climbed a short way up the mountain behind the hut, where we found a convenient bare patch, sheltered by an overhanging rock, and could sit down on the rucksack and study the view.
We were only two thousand feet above sea level, and there in front of us was the Tasman Sea, its irregular coastline sixteen miles distant; the sea was a smooth grey, backed by level grey and yellow clouds—a quiet, lonely sea, and on its surface no faintest trace of fishing boat or steamer.
Just within the coastline glimmered the waters of a peaceful lagoon, and to the right, among the trees, shone a large lake, the surface ruffled by wind, which gave the effect of a fringe of snow on the far side. Between the foot of the glacier and the sea flowed the Waiho River, blue amid the pearly shingle of its wide bed. There is flat land sparsely covered with rough grass and shrub on both sides of the Waiho, then between river and seastretch ridge behind ridge of low bush-covered hills, the furthest jutting out steeply into the ocean.
Beyond the glacier, on the opposite side to where we sat, lies a long level ridge, densely clothed with forest trees, and over them lay the snow gradually melting in the hot sun. Behind the wooded range are higher mountains, and at right angles to them, covering the lower levels, are miles of forest, deep green at first, paling through greens and greys to dimmest grey, where the line of forest meets the dim, grey sea.
Looking up the glacier, we could see two rocky peaks which stand some miles above the head, but not the actual head of the glacier, or the snowfield which feeds it. As we saw it that morning the Franz Josef was one magnificent ice-fall—the topmost ridge of huge ice-crags sharply outlined against the blue, and then a steep descent of rough broken ice, and over all a spotless mantle of snow, white and glistening in the sunshine: mountain and glacier and snow-sprinkled forests combined to make one glorious scene of wintry splendour.
i129
FRANZ JOSEF AND ALMER GLACIERS FROM CAPE DEFIANCE.
FRANZ JOSEF AND ALMER GLACIERS FROM CAPE DEFIANCE.
FRANZ JOSEF AND ALMER GLACIERS FROM CAPE DEFIANCE.
To face page 110
Back to the hut for an early lunch, after which we washed plates and cups, swept the floor, folded up the blankets, sorted out the provisions, put out the fire with a sprinkling of snow, and with key in the lock outside, we left the hut to its winter solitude.
Twenty miles from the Franz Josef Glacier is another, the Fox, which is eleven miles long, and this too, like the Franz Josef, comes down among the forest and ends in a winding river.
To reach the Fox glacier, I rode on horseback through the bush, down the "Main South Road"—such a pretty road—worn bare in places by waggons and horses' feet, but for the most part soft with grass and moss, with grassy margins bordering the forest. After about eight miles, the road becomes a mere track, steep and often stony, and across it are cut shallow water-courses, lined with stones and the stems of tree-ferns; the whole road is continually being improved and widened, and in a few years settlers will be able to drive a carriage where they must now either ride or walk. At intervals by the side of the track are huts, usually of corrugated iron: one was of logs roofed with shingles, andone of fern stems, and along a section on which several men were working, we saw tents of canvas or white calico. The permanent iron huts are put up at Government expense, for the use primarily of surveyors, gold prospectors or roadmen, but any traveller is at liberty to light a fire and spend the night in one of them. At one such hut, standing in a grass paddock, fenced in with barbed wire, we dismounted, turned the horses loose to feed and walked in: it was a small, one-roomed hut, and had four wooden bunks stocked with straw and bracken for bedding, a wide open fireplace, and two wooden benches. We soon had a good fire of dry logs, and when the billy boiled we made tea, and ate our lunch in the sunny paddock, surrounded by bush-covered hills and the remoteness of the forest world.
The aloofness of the "back blocks" is amazing, so vast and yet so friendly; in the forest itself you have only the birds for company, and they are all fearless and trustful, and unsuspecting of any danger from stick or gun: sometimes near a homestead you see cows or sheep grazing by tracks or river-beds, but the only native four-footed animals in allNew Zealand are two varieties of bats, and its forests have no snakes or hurtful creatures of any kind. The people, too, who live among the Westland forests, share in the friendliness of the forest birds; even alone on a bush track at night, I always felt quite sure that if I did meet anyone—roadman or surveyor—he would simply be very glad to see me and would do anything in his power to help me.
The Main South Road goes up three steep hills and down into the valleys between, over rivers and creeks, and always it is a forest road, and we looked through brown trunks and twining lianes and waving fern-fronds upon trees of every shade of green, down in the valleys and up the hillsides, and often some glorious snowy peak crowning the forest. Wherever the hill has been cut away in making the track the once bare soil is covered with ferns and mosses. We rode by walls of green flecked with red, where long glossy ferns and trailing festons of lycopodiums, all copper and green, stretched out to touch us as we passed; and down the cliffs tumbled sparkling waterfalls to join the brawlingstreams below. At sunset, we came to the brow of a long steep hill, overlooking a wide fertile plain—two silvery rivers winding through it; in the distance low bush-hills, and over them as the sun went down, a pink haze, through which the dark trees showed as through a filmy transparency, in front of a clear sky, blue tinged with green.
At Weheka, the homestead where we stayed, I learnt a little about life in remote places: here we were eighty-seven miles from train or doctor, but always, through the telephone, in touch with the world outside. When anyone is ill, the doctor is rung up at Ross or Hokitika, and symptoms are described, and remedies are sent by the next mail—a doctor's visit costs forty or fifty pounds, and in case of emergency each settler must be his own doctor. For children in these country districts Government provides "household schools," allowing £6 a head per annum for three or more children of school age, and a teacher is sent from the nearest school, or sometimes the mother of the children is the teacher; when there are as many as seven children to betaught, a schoolroom is built for them near the homestead, and desks and maps are provided.
Round Weheka a good deal of land has been cleared and sown with grass, and our host was shortly sending two hundred bullocks to the market at Hokitika, over a hundred miles away.
This farmhouse grows every year more modern and up-to-date. The original homestead was a small one-roomed hut planted in the forest.
The present house is roomy and comfortable, with large sitting-room and many bedrooms, the kitchen is a big room apart from the rest, and yet another building is the bathroom, in which is a large bath and a cold water tap, and near all the rest is the Government school. When I first stayed at Weheka, music was provided by an excellent gramophone, but the following year I found a new piano, and one daughter was learning to play the piano, and another the violin.
At first the house was lighted by oil lamps and candles, now electric light has been installed, and an electric globe greets you atthe garden-gate. There is only one other house near the homestead, but the Main South Road goes on bravely for thirteen miles to the next house, and beyond that to another settlement fifty miles further south.
The day following my arrival at Weheka, I was taken on the Fox Glacier.
Compared with the Franz Josef the Fox Glacier carries a quantity of moraine, the terminal face slopes gently down to the valley, and above it are boulders and stones, of every size; many of them are covered with bright red lichen, which makes them look as though they had been sprinkled with brick-dust. The lower ice is in smooth layers, and when you have safely crossed the tempestuous Fox River and scrambled over the loose rubble of the moraine, walking on the glacier itself presents no difficulty.
At one time this glacier stood at a far higher level, and one high rock-face has deep grooves worn in it by the stones carried down in distant ages. Under the rock with its deep grooves, the ice has been forced into huge curves through the variation in its rate offlow: the centre of the glacier moves most quickly, and the ice at the edge has been left behind and wedged against the mountain side: in its efforts to move on, the ice river has become twisted into the strangest contortions, and you can trace cause and effect with unmistakeable clearness.
From a point only a mile up we had a splendid view towards the head of the glacier. Ridges of rock and snow stand above it, and on their right is one tall white peak, beyond which the glacier rises and curves round in a sweeping ice-fall of pinnacles, all jagged white ice shot with green. Looking back down the valley, we saw the sea lying in grey streaks on the distant horizon.
Forest and ice meet at the glacier's edge; we boiled ice-water in the billy, and sat on a grey pebbly beach, under the shelter of a big tree-veronica.
The day had been grey and gloomy, but at sunset, as we left the glacier, the sun shone out, first lighting up the yellow autumn leaves of the fuchsia trees as from the glow of a fiery furnace, then flooding all the forest withgolden light, so that for a few minutes all the bush was turned to gold, with the glacier behind part white and part grey shadow, until the sun sank below the horizon, and all was grey.
CHAPTER XTHROUGH THE BULLER VALLEYI first went into Westland from Christchurch by way of the Otira Gorge: I left it for Wellington by way of the Buller Gorge and the town of Nelson. For three days the return journey is the same—the drive by coach to Ross and the railway to Greymouth: here, instead of turning east to cross the mountains, you go on still by railway, over the Grey River and into the province of Nelson as far as Reefton, where at present the line ends, though it is gradually being continued further north. Motor cars meet the train and take passengers on for the remaining fifty miles between Reefton and Westport, running for a great part of the journey through the Buller Gorge, close to the Buller River.It is a very fine river, from two to three chains wide, and a great volume of brown water flows swiftly between high tree-covered cliffs. There is very little room for the road,which in places has been cut on the face of the cliff overhanging the river, and now on the opposite side trees are being felled and the beauty of the river injured to make a way for the new railroad. There is a certain sameness in the scenery, beautiful though it undoubtedly is—mile after mile of rounded hills of varying height, all uniformly covered with luxuriant growth of pines, beeches, fuchsias, veronicas and tree-ferns, and ever the brown river flowing below.Westport is the centre of the coal-mining industry—a small and dreary town of wooden houses and straight streets, at the head of a desolate plain backed by low forest-hills. It has a harbour at the mouth of the Buller, and here I watched trucks being unloaded into the hold of a small steamer. It was a most scientific unlading—the crane hoisted up the loaded truck and kept it suspended over the hold, then the bottom of the truck opened, and all the coal came tumbling out exactly as it was wanted.After one night at Westport, a motor coach took me back through the Buller Gorge and on up the Buller Valley, until twenty-sevenmiles from Westport it left me at a small hotel; here I had lunch, and afterwards went on again in a coach drawn by four sleek and well-groomed horses. All that afternoon we drove by the side of the Buller River, and all the time the scenery was fine—high cliffs and dense forests, and sometimes through a break in the cliffs we saw a high distant mountain peak, white with freshly fallen snow. The river-bed has been very rich in gold, and some is still found, though the claims are now not worked very energetically; one sluicing hose, that should have been at work tearing down the rock, was aimlessly pouring water with great force back into the river.It was the end of May and cold—as the driver sympathetically remarked "too late in the season for the Buller." I was very glad to see the first twenty miles, but after that, I wearied of forest and cliff; there was too much scenery endlessly repeated, and I was too cold to enjoy it.The last few miles we drove in the dark, and finally came to a little township in an open valley, and here stayed for the night.This valley and the hills surrounding it are all being cleared for grazing land, and up to the very tops of the hills are blackened tree-trunks, while grass is springing up everywhere round the half-burnt stumps.For another ten miles beyond the little settlement the road still follows the course of the Buller, which is now a narrow mountain stream of dark green water, hurrying along between high wooded banks, until at last—and I rejoiced in the change—it branches off, and up another valley and over a low saddle to Glenhope, another small settlement, where we again reach a railway and are able to proceed by train to Nelson.After travelling for two days through a wild and for the most part uninhabited country, the town of Nelson and the smiling fertility of the hollow in which it lies come as a complete and happy surprise. All round Nelson the land is highly cultivated, with hop-gardens and fruit orchards, and though the nearer hills have lost their forest growth and are bare of all but grass, the town itself is lavishly planted with many trees, the berberis hedges were a mass of crimson leaf, and yellowcassias and wattles were flowering, even in mid-winter.Nelson is known in this land of sunshine as "Sunny Nelson," and now that a private donor has generously given a site, there is presently to be built here a Solar Observatory, from which scientists may study the sun.The town has eight thousand inhabitants, good hotels and shops, and fine wide streets; a museum too, and public flower gardens. On rising ground among the trees at the head of the main street—Trafalgar Street—stands the Anglican Cathedral, of wood, painted red; it has a shingle roof and tapering spire, and a broad flight of white stone steps leads up to it: they are very handsome steps, but look a little incongruous so close to the wooden walls.There is a big jam factory at which fruit is tinned and a great deal of excellent jam made: there is no temptation to adulterate the jams, as fruit comes to the factory in greater quantity than the makers can use—peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, strawberries or quinces—one of the men told me that quince jam is the only kind they are everasked to send to England: in New Zealand, where quinces grow in such abundance that they are often left to rot on the ground, it is a jam of little account.In the main, Nelson is a delightful residential town, with good schools and plenty of pleasant houses standing in pretty gardens.Only a mile from the town is the port and the open sea, and by the sand dunes of a wide bay cottages are being built by the people of Nelson, and here they come and picnic, and enjoy sea bathing and golf and wonderful views across the bay, of snowy mountains and blue hills. The hills have as foreground a wide stretch of open country, neither hilly nor flat, but crumpled into little ridges running in all directions. This crumpled land is the district of Moutere, and here it has recently been discovered that apples grow better than they do anywhere else in the neighbourhood, so all who have land there are turning it to account for apple orchards.The great excitement of the place just then was the visit to the port of H.M.S. "New Zealand."Hundreds of people went aboard and wereshown the ship and many of her treasures—such as signed portraits of the King and Queen, hanging on either side of a glass case containing presents given to the ship—silver gilt cups, massive branched candlesticks and Maori curios; portraits too of Dick Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward.Officers and men were entertained in the town, and the sailors gave exhibitions of naval drill and sports in a large paddock near the port.June 3rd, the King's birthday, is observed through the Dominion as a general holiday.It was winter certainly, but the sun shone and the air was mild, and friends took me out picnicing. First we drove three miles in an open carriage to a reservoir on the outskirts of the town, from there a steep track took us into the bush, and by a trickling stream we piled up sticks and boiled the billy, and then sat down for tea on a mossy bank overlooking a wooded ravine. It was all very pleasant and a little unexpected at that time of year, but other picnic parties were doing the same.From Nelson steamers run to Wellington.Nelson is situated at the north of SouthIsland, and Wellington at the extreme southern point of North Island, but between the two places lie many miles of coastline, and the voyage takes several hours—from early morning until late at night, if as on the day when I crossed Cook Strait, the steamer calls in at Picton. Between Nelson and Picton the land shows a very curious geological formation—a flat tableland cut through by deep gorges up which the sea flows in long curving arms, and all the arms or "sounds" are indented with numberless bays, large and small, and off the coast and within the sounds are many rocky, tree-clad islands.At the entrance to Pelorus Sound the boats have for many years been met by a white dolphin—Pelorus Jack—who always escorted them up to Picton. Jack was specially protected by Act of Parliament, but for over a year nothing has been seen of him, and his old friends fear that he is dead.The steamer hugs the coast and you admire the high cliffs and forests and the waterways that separate them. We turned up Queen Charlotte Sound—a narrow entrance and then a long landlocked harbour, up which it took two hours tosteam. On either side were high bush hills, cleared in places for grass; round us played a large shoal of porpoises, the great creatures often jumping right out of the water close to the ship, while all the time grey gulls circled gracefully round and round.At Picton we found H.M.S. "New Zealand" again on view, anchored behind a small island at the head of the sound; the town was crowded with people who had come to see her and join in the festivities, and outside the Town Hall were decorations of tree-ferns and feathery rimu branches.That evening we had a calm and uneventful journey down the sound, then suddenly as the ship entered Cook Strait, she lurched over, and continued to roll and pitch for the next two hours.I think most of the passengers were glad to be at peace and safely berthed in Wellington Harbour.
THROUGH THE BULLER VALLEY
I first went into Westland from Christchurch by way of the Otira Gorge: I left it for Wellington by way of the Buller Gorge and the town of Nelson. For three days the return journey is the same—the drive by coach to Ross and the railway to Greymouth: here, instead of turning east to cross the mountains, you go on still by railway, over the Grey River and into the province of Nelson as far as Reefton, where at present the line ends, though it is gradually being continued further north. Motor cars meet the train and take passengers on for the remaining fifty miles between Reefton and Westport, running for a great part of the journey through the Buller Gorge, close to the Buller River.
It is a very fine river, from two to three chains wide, and a great volume of brown water flows swiftly between high tree-covered cliffs. There is very little room for the road,which in places has been cut on the face of the cliff overhanging the river, and now on the opposite side trees are being felled and the beauty of the river injured to make a way for the new railroad. There is a certain sameness in the scenery, beautiful though it undoubtedly is—mile after mile of rounded hills of varying height, all uniformly covered with luxuriant growth of pines, beeches, fuchsias, veronicas and tree-ferns, and ever the brown river flowing below.
Westport is the centre of the coal-mining industry—a small and dreary town of wooden houses and straight streets, at the head of a desolate plain backed by low forest-hills. It has a harbour at the mouth of the Buller, and here I watched trucks being unloaded into the hold of a small steamer. It was a most scientific unlading—the crane hoisted up the loaded truck and kept it suspended over the hold, then the bottom of the truck opened, and all the coal came tumbling out exactly as it was wanted.
After one night at Westport, a motor coach took me back through the Buller Gorge and on up the Buller Valley, until twenty-sevenmiles from Westport it left me at a small hotel; here I had lunch, and afterwards went on again in a coach drawn by four sleek and well-groomed horses. All that afternoon we drove by the side of the Buller River, and all the time the scenery was fine—high cliffs and dense forests, and sometimes through a break in the cliffs we saw a high distant mountain peak, white with freshly fallen snow. The river-bed has been very rich in gold, and some is still found, though the claims are now not worked very energetically; one sluicing hose, that should have been at work tearing down the rock, was aimlessly pouring water with great force back into the river.
It was the end of May and cold—as the driver sympathetically remarked "too late in the season for the Buller." I was very glad to see the first twenty miles, but after that, I wearied of forest and cliff; there was too much scenery endlessly repeated, and I was too cold to enjoy it.
The last few miles we drove in the dark, and finally came to a little township in an open valley, and here stayed for the night.
This valley and the hills surrounding it are all being cleared for grazing land, and up to the very tops of the hills are blackened tree-trunks, while grass is springing up everywhere round the half-burnt stumps.
For another ten miles beyond the little settlement the road still follows the course of the Buller, which is now a narrow mountain stream of dark green water, hurrying along between high wooded banks, until at last—and I rejoiced in the change—it branches off, and up another valley and over a low saddle to Glenhope, another small settlement, where we again reach a railway and are able to proceed by train to Nelson.
After travelling for two days through a wild and for the most part uninhabited country, the town of Nelson and the smiling fertility of the hollow in which it lies come as a complete and happy surprise. All round Nelson the land is highly cultivated, with hop-gardens and fruit orchards, and though the nearer hills have lost their forest growth and are bare of all but grass, the town itself is lavishly planted with many trees, the berberis hedges were a mass of crimson leaf, and yellowcassias and wattles were flowering, even in mid-winter.
Nelson is known in this land of sunshine as "Sunny Nelson," and now that a private donor has generously given a site, there is presently to be built here a Solar Observatory, from which scientists may study the sun.
The town has eight thousand inhabitants, good hotels and shops, and fine wide streets; a museum too, and public flower gardens. On rising ground among the trees at the head of the main street—Trafalgar Street—stands the Anglican Cathedral, of wood, painted red; it has a shingle roof and tapering spire, and a broad flight of white stone steps leads up to it: they are very handsome steps, but look a little incongruous so close to the wooden walls.
There is a big jam factory at which fruit is tinned and a great deal of excellent jam made: there is no temptation to adulterate the jams, as fruit comes to the factory in greater quantity than the makers can use—peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, strawberries or quinces—one of the men told me that quince jam is the only kind they are everasked to send to England: in New Zealand, where quinces grow in such abundance that they are often left to rot on the ground, it is a jam of little account.
In the main, Nelson is a delightful residential town, with good schools and plenty of pleasant houses standing in pretty gardens.
Only a mile from the town is the port and the open sea, and by the sand dunes of a wide bay cottages are being built by the people of Nelson, and here they come and picnic, and enjoy sea bathing and golf and wonderful views across the bay, of snowy mountains and blue hills. The hills have as foreground a wide stretch of open country, neither hilly nor flat, but crumpled into little ridges running in all directions. This crumpled land is the district of Moutere, and here it has recently been discovered that apples grow better than they do anywhere else in the neighbourhood, so all who have land there are turning it to account for apple orchards.
The great excitement of the place just then was the visit to the port of H.M.S. "New Zealand."
Hundreds of people went aboard and wereshown the ship and many of her treasures—such as signed portraits of the King and Queen, hanging on either side of a glass case containing presents given to the ship—silver gilt cups, massive branched candlesticks and Maori curios; portraits too of Dick Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward.
Officers and men were entertained in the town, and the sailors gave exhibitions of naval drill and sports in a large paddock near the port.
June 3rd, the King's birthday, is observed through the Dominion as a general holiday.
It was winter certainly, but the sun shone and the air was mild, and friends took me out picnicing. First we drove three miles in an open carriage to a reservoir on the outskirts of the town, from there a steep track took us into the bush, and by a trickling stream we piled up sticks and boiled the billy, and then sat down for tea on a mossy bank overlooking a wooded ravine. It was all very pleasant and a little unexpected at that time of year, but other picnic parties were doing the same.
From Nelson steamers run to Wellington.
Nelson is situated at the north of SouthIsland, and Wellington at the extreme southern point of North Island, but between the two places lie many miles of coastline, and the voyage takes several hours—from early morning until late at night, if as on the day when I crossed Cook Strait, the steamer calls in at Picton. Between Nelson and Picton the land shows a very curious geological formation—a flat tableland cut through by deep gorges up which the sea flows in long curving arms, and all the arms or "sounds" are indented with numberless bays, large and small, and off the coast and within the sounds are many rocky, tree-clad islands.
At the entrance to Pelorus Sound the boats have for many years been met by a white dolphin—Pelorus Jack—who always escorted them up to Picton. Jack was specially protected by Act of Parliament, but for over a year nothing has been seen of him, and his old friends fear that he is dead.
The steamer hugs the coast and you admire the high cliffs and forests and the waterways that separate them. We turned up Queen Charlotte Sound—a narrow entrance and then a long landlocked harbour, up which it took two hours tosteam. On either side were high bush hills, cleared in places for grass; round us played a large shoal of porpoises, the great creatures often jumping right out of the water close to the ship, while all the time grey gulls circled gracefully round and round.
At Picton we found H.M.S. "New Zealand" again on view, anchored behind a small island at the head of the sound; the town was crowded with people who had come to see her and join in the festivities, and outside the Town Hall were decorations of tree-ferns and feathery rimu branches.
That evening we had a calm and uneventful journey down the sound, then suddenly as the ship entered Cook Strait, she lurched over, and continued to roll and pitch for the next two hours.
I think most of the passengers were glad to be at peace and safely berthed in Wellington Harbour.
CHAPTER XITHE COPLAND PASSAs seen from the Hermitage, the Southern Alps form an apparently impassable barrier between Canterbury on the east and the Province of Westland lying between the mountains and the western sea. There are certainly no coach roads or bridle tracks across the snow, but with the help of a guide, a good walker, however inexperienced in mountaineering, can without much difficulty cross the mountains by one of the passes or saddles which divide some of the high peaks. Accordingly, early in April, I was ready to cross the Copland Pass with a guide who was returning to Westland—the same guide who last year took me on the Franz Josef glacier.Among the mountains the weather is always an uncertain quantity, and the day fixed for leaving the Hermitage was hopelessly wet, so we had to wait. The next day was fine, so in the afternoon we started and walked alongthe track for seven miles up the valley to the Hooker Hut, hoping to spend one night there and go on next day. All that night rain poured in torrents and the wind howled round the hut in furious gusts. Now this hut with its framework of wood looks very fragile, and as it rocked and shook me in my bunk all night I wondered would it stand the strain. I was assured in the morning that it was built on very solid foundations and anchored firmly to the rock, and not at all likely to be blown over. That day and the following night the wind and rain continued, so we left the hut and tramped back to the Hermitage and there stayed for another two days.On a beautiful sunshiny afternoon we tried again, and as we walked up to the hut, Mount Cook shone pink in the evening glow, the sky behind the mountains and away southwards down the Tasman Valley was blue and clear, with a few dainty clouds, and there seemed every prospect of fine weather. During the night up sprang the wind, and it was blowing hard as we left the hut to have a look at the pass. From the Hooker Hut a rough track leads upand over the tops of rocky ridges, where sometimes there is no track at all, but you must climb with hands as well as feet, and on this particular day the wind was so strong that I could only just manage to stand or breathe, and was glad to be securely roped to my guide and know that if I did fall it would not be far. After two hours' climbing, we had sleet driving against our faces to contend with as well as wind, and higher up a snowstorm was raging, so back we turned, and were glad to reach the shelter of the hut once more.Snow fell round the hut during the night, but cleared off the next morning, and soon after nine o'clock we made another start. The day was quite still, hardly a blade of grass moved, masses of white fleecy clouds floated round and above the mountains, and as the sun grew stronger, light mists rose from the valley below us, and scattered like thin gauze among the clouds. The Hermitage showed clearly in the valley, its white wall and red roof in sharp relief against a background of dark green and brown hillside; in front of the Hermitage the wide-stretching grey shingle of the Tasman river-bed, with theriver apparently running uphill towards Lake Pukaki, very blue and distinct forty miles away, and having the curious effect of a lake up in the sky; behind the lake, brown mountains sprinkled with snow showing plainly against flat, indigo-coloured clouds, and over all a clear dome of pale blue. Climbing up the track was easy work on such a quiet morning, and we had at first no use for the rope.After the rock-ridge come snow-slopes, where there is always the possibility of slipping, so the guide put me on the rope and went ahead, kicking steps in the soft snow, or cutting them with his ice-axe where the snow was frozen. We went along the edges of deep crevasses and past lovely ice-caverns, where fringes of glittering icicles guard the entrances to blue recesses in the white ice, and up one short ice wall, where hand holes were cut as well as steps, and I climbed with hands and feet from one step to the next, with the help of my axe stuck firmly in the ledge above.At twelve o'clock we gained the summit, 7,000 feet above sea level, and found a narrow rock-wall, a succession of sharply toothedrocks, too sharp for snow to lodge on them, standing with their bases in the snow. We stood there, beside the rocky wall, with one hand in Westland and the other in Canterbury. It was now a radiant day of brilliant sunshine and deep blue sky, and we were surrounded by white peaks towering majestically into the blue heaven. Looking back, we had a fine view of Mount Cook and the Mount Cook Range, striking off at right angles to the main Divide. Mount Cook stood at the head, very snowy and beautiful, and the mountains of that range were a series of sharp rocky peaks, with patches of last year's snow on their summits, and a powdery sprinkling of fresh snow reaching far down their sides. Looking along the main Divide to the south, were peaks of rock and snow between us and the whiteness of Mounts Footstool and Sefton. These giants of respectively over nine and ten thousand feet rise up grandly from the valley—their steep, snowy summits glittering in the sunlight, then rough ridges of rock alternating with glacier and snowfield, falling away by degrees to the sheer mountain side of brown rock and sombre green bush. Beyond Sefton and at right angles to the main range were more peaks of rock and snow; facing us were other mountains; far below lay the Copland Valley, a silver stream flowing through it, and behind the brown peaks opposite, half hidden by billowy white clouds, we had a distant glimpse of the blue sea. The whole scene was as fair and wonderful as anyone could wish for.i153MOUNTS SEFTON AND FOOTSTOOL FROM COPLAND PASS.To face page 132.There are higher and grander mountains in other parts of the world, but perhaps none more satisfyingly beautiful than the New Zealand Alps, which always give one a happy feeling that they are exactly right, and could not possibly be altered for the better.Our next move was the descent into Westland. My guide stood in Canterbury and hauled me over the summit like a sack of potatoes, and then told me to slide down on to a narrow ledge, where I had for my only hand-holds rock thickly glazed with ice; and then to stand upright in snow which, apparently, had no bottom but infinity: not altogether liking the look of it, I rashly said, "I can't," and was answered instantly and very firmly with, "You must." So I hadto make the best of it, and with the rope to steady me, found it quite simple after all.When the guide had scrambled over, he again took the lead, and went forward through the soft snow, kicking steps in a long steep slope, which led us out on a stretch of rough moraine, where fragments of rock of all shapes and sizes, with knife-like edges, lay scattered thickly on the mountain side. You learn to walk cautiously on such rocks, as their sharp edges hurt even through strong boots, and not infrequently one treads on a loose stone, and gets an unexpected tumble and a few bruises. Great boulders succeed the moraine, and here we trod on crisp grass, and found a few late white lilies and mountain daisies still in flower. Concealed by loose stones under a particularly huge boulder were cups and a billy. A fire was soon lighted, and we had an excellent lunch of tea and sardine sandwiches. Over our heads flew a couple of keas in plumage of red and green; beyond a steep precipice close at hand thundered a high and sparkling waterfall, while all round us towered the mountains in solitary grandeur.One great charm of mountaineering in NewZealand is its loneliness; you feel that for the time the whole world is yours to enjoy—the beauty and the wonder are for you alone.Right among the Alps there are only two hotels—one on either side—from which it is possible to begin climbing, and if a party sets out to go from one side of the mountains to the other, the fact is known by wire immediately they have started, and news of their arrival is anxiously awaited, and if any delay occurs, an "urgent" telegram is sent round asking for news, so that, wherever you may be, you are always protected by the thoughts of friends from east and west. Not many people have yet discovered the Southern Alps, very few even among the New Zealanders themselves realise how big and marvellous a playground they have in all the Alpine district: in whatever direction you go, you see peaks that no one has yet climbed, and tracts of forest and mountain that are completely unexplored. To climb at all in New Zealand, either on glacier or mountain, you need some share of the spirit of adventure, for you never know at the beginning of the day what you will have done by the end of it; always youmust have confidence in your guide, and in your own feet and powers of endurance. There are no planks laid across crevasses or ropes fixed in steep places up the mountains—everything is entirely unspoiled, and the mountains stand as they have done through the centuries before any white man set foot in New Zealand. Until this season there had never been a serious accident to any climber in the Southern Alps, but last February—on February 22nd, 1914—as an experienced English climber and two of the Hermitage guides were descending Mount Cook, they were overwhelmed by an avalanche, and all three killed, and so sad a disaster has thrown a gloom over all this season's climbing.From the rock where my guide and I had lunch, a narrow and well-defined track, made only last year, winds gradually down for two or three miles over rough shingle and across many creeks hurrying from the snows. The track leads away down into the valley, winding in and out among the scrub, where snow grass flourishes, waving creamy tassels above thick clumps of long, bright green streamers; and the hillsideis dotted with shrubs, gay with brilliant berries in all shades of red and orange. Always from the track are wonderful views of high, bush-covered hills, with snowy peaks ever rising majestically behind the green.The Alpine plants now give place to the familiar ferns and mosses of the Westland bush, and suddenly the track enters the forest and continues through it for another three miles, sometimes over tree-roots, sometimes leading over rushing torrents where you jump from one boulder to another, but in the main it affords an easy path, until it comes out upon Welcome Flat—a two-mile expanse of open grassy country, with the Copland River running through in many turbulent streams. The streams were too high and swift for me to ford, so my guide took me over on his back, and the water swirled madly round his knees, while I was very safe and quite dry. After the fords we had to leave the river, and strike again into the bush along a disused track, where tree-trunks lay right across the path, bush-lawyers and tree-ferns trailed in our faces, and our feet were entangled in moss-grown roots, andbrought up suddenly by deep black hollows, where the wisest course was to sit down and slide from one level to the next. By daylight I am sure this must be an enchanting way through a wealth of forest greenery, but in the dusk and at the end of a long day's tramp it meant a difficult half-hour's scramble, and it was a relief to emerge into the open, and find ourselves at a three-roomed Alpine hut where we stopped for the night.Close to this hut are pools of hot sulphur water, fed continually by hot springs. The pools lie in an open space amid the bush; trees and ferns and green mosses grow down to the water's edge, and between the separate pools of bubbling green water is a wide deposit of silica in varying shades of pink—emeralds in a setting of garnets—and about the pools, steam constantly rising and floating away over the forest. While the fire was being lighted, soup made and peas boiled for dinner, I had a bath in one of the pools, by the light of a lantern stuck on a convenient post, in delightfully warm water, which kept rising in fresh bubbles all over me as I bathed: a dim moon looked down from a cloudy sky, and allwas wrapped in the utter peace and quiet of forest and mountain by night.The following day was gloomy, wet and disappointing. All round Welcome Flat rise mountains of rock and snow, behind green bush sloping down to the river valleys; I saw no mountains—nothing but trees and valleys below a line of white, impenetrable mist. I was mounted astride on a horse whose back I shared with the packs—bags of sacking filled with rucksack and other bundles, all carefully covered with more sacking to keep them dry. The track leads always through the forest, up and down among the trees, and over many glacier-fed streams—so rough a track that we could only go at a walking pace. When we came to particularly strong and swift-rushing torrents I had to dismount, and, once safe on a big boulder in midstream, I watched admiringly while his master led the horse through the water, and let him scramble up the loose stones of the opposite bank.At the end of thirteen miles we arrived at a homestead, where it seemed strange to exchange the mountain solitudes for the bustle of farm life, with barking collie dogs, quackingducks, crowing "roosters," horses, cows and sheep, and people constantly coming and going in and out of a comfortable house, standing in its gay flower-garden, surrounded by green paddocks. We were hungry, and very glad to eat an excellent dinner of roast duck and apple pie, and I was content to rest by a glowing fire and go early to bed.In the morning, we hired a second horse, and rode the last stage of thirty miles at a good pace, with a long stop at another homestead for lunch. This was a better day than the previous one, part sunny and part gloomy, and I had good views of the mountains. After a few miles, the road—for it is more than a bridle-track just here—leaves the forest and comes out on a wide shingle flat. Among the grey stones a river wanders in many devious branches. Some of the streams were shallow, but one, where the current swirled furiously along, was well over our horses' knees as we forded it. On the further side of the river we stopped, for this is one of the best view-points in all South Westland.Looking eastward to the mountains, we saw, through floating masses of white cloud,the peaks which I have learnt to know from the other side of the Alps. Haidinger Peak showed square and white against blue sky, and we had fleeting glimpses of Mounts Cook and Tasman—the latter, a sharp snowy peak at the head of the Fox Glacier. Below Mount Tasman the glacier curves down in a broad sweep of white ice, between sombre green forests, towards the river-valleys. From where our horses stood, the wide river-bed—grey shingle with silver streaks of water—made a spacious foreground to the mountains. All about us were low-growing, green shrubs, and tall, feathery, white sprays of "toi-toi" grass. On our left, looking down the river, were low, bush-covered hills, separated by broad gaps, where, only a few miles distant, several rivers flow into the Tasman Sea.To-day's ride was not lacking in excitement. The previous night there had been a high gale, the telephone wire was down at the fords; and in the forest, trees had been blown across road and wire, one tree so big that it completely blocked the way, and we had to get off our horses. The guide rapidly cut off straggling branches with anaxe, which he had brought in case of accidents; we then climbed the trunk, and the horses easily jumped over.We came safely to our journey's end at Waiho Gorge, by the Franz Josef glacier, at nightfall, greeted cheerily by the light streaming through the open door of the hotel, and by the kindly welcome of my last year's friends.i166GLACIER HOTEL, WAIHO GORGE.To face page 143.
THE COPLAND PASS
As seen from the Hermitage, the Southern Alps form an apparently impassable barrier between Canterbury on the east and the Province of Westland lying between the mountains and the western sea. There are certainly no coach roads or bridle tracks across the snow, but with the help of a guide, a good walker, however inexperienced in mountaineering, can without much difficulty cross the mountains by one of the passes or saddles which divide some of the high peaks. Accordingly, early in April, I was ready to cross the Copland Pass with a guide who was returning to Westland—the same guide who last year took me on the Franz Josef glacier.
Among the mountains the weather is always an uncertain quantity, and the day fixed for leaving the Hermitage was hopelessly wet, so we had to wait. The next day was fine, so in the afternoon we started and walked alongthe track for seven miles up the valley to the Hooker Hut, hoping to spend one night there and go on next day. All that night rain poured in torrents and the wind howled round the hut in furious gusts. Now this hut with its framework of wood looks very fragile, and as it rocked and shook me in my bunk all night I wondered would it stand the strain. I was assured in the morning that it was built on very solid foundations and anchored firmly to the rock, and not at all likely to be blown over. That day and the following night the wind and rain continued, so we left the hut and tramped back to the Hermitage and there stayed for another two days.
On a beautiful sunshiny afternoon we tried again, and as we walked up to the hut, Mount Cook shone pink in the evening glow, the sky behind the mountains and away southwards down the Tasman Valley was blue and clear, with a few dainty clouds, and there seemed every prospect of fine weather. During the night up sprang the wind, and it was blowing hard as we left the hut to have a look at the pass. From the Hooker Hut a rough track leads upand over the tops of rocky ridges, where sometimes there is no track at all, but you must climb with hands as well as feet, and on this particular day the wind was so strong that I could only just manage to stand or breathe, and was glad to be securely roped to my guide and know that if I did fall it would not be far. After two hours' climbing, we had sleet driving against our faces to contend with as well as wind, and higher up a snowstorm was raging, so back we turned, and were glad to reach the shelter of the hut once more.
Snow fell round the hut during the night, but cleared off the next morning, and soon after nine o'clock we made another start. The day was quite still, hardly a blade of grass moved, masses of white fleecy clouds floated round and above the mountains, and as the sun grew stronger, light mists rose from the valley below us, and scattered like thin gauze among the clouds. The Hermitage showed clearly in the valley, its white wall and red roof in sharp relief against a background of dark green and brown hillside; in front of the Hermitage the wide-stretching grey shingle of the Tasman river-bed, with theriver apparently running uphill towards Lake Pukaki, very blue and distinct forty miles away, and having the curious effect of a lake up in the sky; behind the lake, brown mountains sprinkled with snow showing plainly against flat, indigo-coloured clouds, and over all a clear dome of pale blue. Climbing up the track was easy work on such a quiet morning, and we had at first no use for the rope.
After the rock-ridge come snow-slopes, where there is always the possibility of slipping, so the guide put me on the rope and went ahead, kicking steps in the soft snow, or cutting them with his ice-axe where the snow was frozen. We went along the edges of deep crevasses and past lovely ice-caverns, where fringes of glittering icicles guard the entrances to blue recesses in the white ice, and up one short ice wall, where hand holes were cut as well as steps, and I climbed with hands and feet from one step to the next, with the help of my axe stuck firmly in the ledge above.
At twelve o'clock we gained the summit, 7,000 feet above sea level, and found a narrow rock-wall, a succession of sharply toothedrocks, too sharp for snow to lodge on them, standing with their bases in the snow. We stood there, beside the rocky wall, with one hand in Westland and the other in Canterbury. It was now a radiant day of brilliant sunshine and deep blue sky, and we were surrounded by white peaks towering majestically into the blue heaven. Looking back, we had a fine view of Mount Cook and the Mount Cook Range, striking off at right angles to the main Divide. Mount Cook stood at the head, very snowy and beautiful, and the mountains of that range were a series of sharp rocky peaks, with patches of last year's snow on their summits, and a powdery sprinkling of fresh snow reaching far down their sides. Looking along the main Divide to the south, were peaks of rock and snow between us and the whiteness of Mounts Footstool and Sefton. These giants of respectively over nine and ten thousand feet rise up grandly from the valley—their steep, snowy summits glittering in the sunlight, then rough ridges of rock alternating with glacier and snowfield, falling away by degrees to the sheer mountain side of brown rock and sombre green bush. Beyond Sefton and at right angles to the main range were more peaks of rock and snow; facing us were other mountains; far below lay the Copland Valley, a silver stream flowing through it, and behind the brown peaks opposite, half hidden by billowy white clouds, we had a distant glimpse of the blue sea. The whole scene was as fair and wonderful as anyone could wish for.
i153
MOUNTS SEFTON AND FOOTSTOOL FROM COPLAND PASS.
MOUNTS SEFTON AND FOOTSTOOL FROM COPLAND PASS.
MOUNTS SEFTON AND FOOTSTOOL FROM COPLAND PASS.
To face page 132.
There are higher and grander mountains in other parts of the world, but perhaps none more satisfyingly beautiful than the New Zealand Alps, which always give one a happy feeling that they are exactly right, and could not possibly be altered for the better.
Our next move was the descent into Westland. My guide stood in Canterbury and hauled me over the summit like a sack of potatoes, and then told me to slide down on to a narrow ledge, where I had for my only hand-holds rock thickly glazed with ice; and then to stand upright in snow which, apparently, had no bottom but infinity: not altogether liking the look of it, I rashly said, "I can't," and was answered instantly and very firmly with, "You must." So I hadto make the best of it, and with the rope to steady me, found it quite simple after all.
When the guide had scrambled over, he again took the lead, and went forward through the soft snow, kicking steps in a long steep slope, which led us out on a stretch of rough moraine, where fragments of rock of all shapes and sizes, with knife-like edges, lay scattered thickly on the mountain side. You learn to walk cautiously on such rocks, as their sharp edges hurt even through strong boots, and not infrequently one treads on a loose stone, and gets an unexpected tumble and a few bruises. Great boulders succeed the moraine, and here we trod on crisp grass, and found a few late white lilies and mountain daisies still in flower. Concealed by loose stones under a particularly huge boulder were cups and a billy. A fire was soon lighted, and we had an excellent lunch of tea and sardine sandwiches. Over our heads flew a couple of keas in plumage of red and green; beyond a steep precipice close at hand thundered a high and sparkling waterfall, while all round us towered the mountains in solitary grandeur.
One great charm of mountaineering in NewZealand is its loneliness; you feel that for the time the whole world is yours to enjoy—the beauty and the wonder are for you alone.
Right among the Alps there are only two hotels—one on either side—from which it is possible to begin climbing, and if a party sets out to go from one side of the mountains to the other, the fact is known by wire immediately they have started, and news of their arrival is anxiously awaited, and if any delay occurs, an "urgent" telegram is sent round asking for news, so that, wherever you may be, you are always protected by the thoughts of friends from east and west. Not many people have yet discovered the Southern Alps, very few even among the New Zealanders themselves realise how big and marvellous a playground they have in all the Alpine district: in whatever direction you go, you see peaks that no one has yet climbed, and tracts of forest and mountain that are completely unexplored. To climb at all in New Zealand, either on glacier or mountain, you need some share of the spirit of adventure, for you never know at the beginning of the day what you will have done by the end of it; always youmust have confidence in your guide, and in your own feet and powers of endurance. There are no planks laid across crevasses or ropes fixed in steep places up the mountains—everything is entirely unspoiled, and the mountains stand as they have done through the centuries before any white man set foot in New Zealand. Until this season there had never been a serious accident to any climber in the Southern Alps, but last February—on February 22nd, 1914—as an experienced English climber and two of the Hermitage guides were descending Mount Cook, they were overwhelmed by an avalanche, and all three killed, and so sad a disaster has thrown a gloom over all this season's climbing.
From the rock where my guide and I had lunch, a narrow and well-defined track, made only last year, winds gradually down for two or three miles over rough shingle and across many creeks hurrying from the snows. The track leads away down into the valley, winding in and out among the scrub, where snow grass flourishes, waving creamy tassels above thick clumps of long, bright green streamers; and the hillsideis dotted with shrubs, gay with brilliant berries in all shades of red and orange. Always from the track are wonderful views of high, bush-covered hills, with snowy peaks ever rising majestically behind the green.
The Alpine plants now give place to the familiar ferns and mosses of the Westland bush, and suddenly the track enters the forest and continues through it for another three miles, sometimes over tree-roots, sometimes leading over rushing torrents where you jump from one boulder to another, but in the main it affords an easy path, until it comes out upon Welcome Flat—a two-mile expanse of open grassy country, with the Copland River running through in many turbulent streams. The streams were too high and swift for me to ford, so my guide took me over on his back, and the water swirled madly round his knees, while I was very safe and quite dry. After the fords we had to leave the river, and strike again into the bush along a disused track, where tree-trunks lay right across the path, bush-lawyers and tree-ferns trailed in our faces, and our feet were entangled in moss-grown roots, andbrought up suddenly by deep black hollows, where the wisest course was to sit down and slide from one level to the next. By daylight I am sure this must be an enchanting way through a wealth of forest greenery, but in the dusk and at the end of a long day's tramp it meant a difficult half-hour's scramble, and it was a relief to emerge into the open, and find ourselves at a three-roomed Alpine hut where we stopped for the night.
Close to this hut are pools of hot sulphur water, fed continually by hot springs. The pools lie in an open space amid the bush; trees and ferns and green mosses grow down to the water's edge, and between the separate pools of bubbling green water is a wide deposit of silica in varying shades of pink—emeralds in a setting of garnets—and about the pools, steam constantly rising and floating away over the forest. While the fire was being lighted, soup made and peas boiled for dinner, I had a bath in one of the pools, by the light of a lantern stuck on a convenient post, in delightfully warm water, which kept rising in fresh bubbles all over me as I bathed: a dim moon looked down from a cloudy sky, and allwas wrapped in the utter peace and quiet of forest and mountain by night.
The following day was gloomy, wet and disappointing. All round Welcome Flat rise mountains of rock and snow, behind green bush sloping down to the river valleys; I saw no mountains—nothing but trees and valleys below a line of white, impenetrable mist. I was mounted astride on a horse whose back I shared with the packs—bags of sacking filled with rucksack and other bundles, all carefully covered with more sacking to keep them dry. The track leads always through the forest, up and down among the trees, and over many glacier-fed streams—so rough a track that we could only go at a walking pace. When we came to particularly strong and swift-rushing torrents I had to dismount, and, once safe on a big boulder in midstream, I watched admiringly while his master led the horse through the water, and let him scramble up the loose stones of the opposite bank.
At the end of thirteen miles we arrived at a homestead, where it seemed strange to exchange the mountain solitudes for the bustle of farm life, with barking collie dogs, quackingducks, crowing "roosters," horses, cows and sheep, and people constantly coming and going in and out of a comfortable house, standing in its gay flower-garden, surrounded by green paddocks. We were hungry, and very glad to eat an excellent dinner of roast duck and apple pie, and I was content to rest by a glowing fire and go early to bed.
In the morning, we hired a second horse, and rode the last stage of thirty miles at a good pace, with a long stop at another homestead for lunch. This was a better day than the previous one, part sunny and part gloomy, and I had good views of the mountains. After a few miles, the road—for it is more than a bridle-track just here—leaves the forest and comes out on a wide shingle flat. Among the grey stones a river wanders in many devious branches. Some of the streams were shallow, but one, where the current swirled furiously along, was well over our horses' knees as we forded it. On the further side of the river we stopped, for this is one of the best view-points in all South Westland.
Looking eastward to the mountains, we saw, through floating masses of white cloud,the peaks which I have learnt to know from the other side of the Alps. Haidinger Peak showed square and white against blue sky, and we had fleeting glimpses of Mounts Cook and Tasman—the latter, a sharp snowy peak at the head of the Fox Glacier. Below Mount Tasman the glacier curves down in a broad sweep of white ice, between sombre green forests, towards the river-valleys. From where our horses stood, the wide river-bed—grey shingle with silver streaks of water—made a spacious foreground to the mountains. All about us were low-growing, green shrubs, and tall, feathery, white sprays of "toi-toi" grass. On our left, looking down the river, were low, bush-covered hills, separated by broad gaps, where, only a few miles distant, several rivers flow into the Tasman Sea.
To-day's ride was not lacking in excitement. The previous night there had been a high gale, the telephone wire was down at the fords; and in the forest, trees had been blown across road and wire, one tree so big that it completely blocked the way, and we had to get off our horses. The guide rapidly cut off straggling branches with anaxe, which he had brought in case of accidents; we then climbed the trunk, and the horses easily jumped over.
We came safely to our journey's end at Waiho Gorge, by the Franz Josef glacier, at nightfall, greeted cheerily by the light streaming through the open door of the hotel, and by the kindly welcome of my last year's friends.
i166
GLACIER HOTEL, WAIHO GORGE.
GLACIER HOTEL, WAIHO GORGE.
GLACIER HOTEL, WAIHO GORGE.
To face page 143.
CHAPTER XIITHE WESTLAND GLACIERSI was back at Waiho Gorge and content—seventy miles from the nearest train, and with a mail once a week.At Waiho, there are a few small huts, three cottages and the hotel. The Glacier Hotel is a two-storied wooden building, with verandah and balcony, and accommodation for between thirty and forty; it has a dining-room, smoking-room and two sitting-rooms, in one of which is an excellent piano; there are two bathrooms with a good supply of hot and cold water, and soon the house will be lighted by electricity—the power to be brought from a convenient waterfall close by. Under the same roof is a store, where you can buy groceries, boot-laces and tobacco, and in the same store you find a post-office with a telephone—that indispensable luxury of the back blocks. It is in the parish of Ross, and four times a year the Anglican clergyman drives seventymiles to hold a service. While I was staying here, the Bishop of Christchurch took a journey of two hundred miles to conduct a Confirmation in the smoking-room: there were nine candidates, some of whom had come more than forty miles. The Presbyterian minister also comes from Ross and holds a service, and sometimes the Roman Catholic priest spends a night at the hotel.At this hotel, tourists may feel that they are visitors and friends, so kindly is their welcome, and so homelike and pleasant are the arrangements made for them. No one need be dull—something is always happening—a draper comes through with his pack of goods for sale; a farmer rides up with his daughters from a homestead thirty miles south, on their way to a dance held in a hall twenty miles further on; news too continually filters through—for the settlers all know one another, and take the keenest interest in each other's welfare. Catering is sometimes difficult. There are cows for milk, chickens and a kitchen garden, sheep too, in paddocks not far off; but all other provisions must either come in the weekly coach or by steamer tothe small township of Okarito, seventeen miles away. Okarito is like other west coast harbours, in having a bar, which, in stormy weather, makes it impossible for even a small steamer to enter or leave the port. Often, for weeks at a time, the inhabitants of Waiho Gorge must depend on the mail coach for their supplies.I had come back to learn more of the mountains and their ways, if only the weather would allow me to climb.For a short expedition up the Franz Josef Glacier, a hut stocked with provisions and blankets stands ready a few hours' tramp from Waiho, and for a day on the Fox, the farmhouse at Weheka serves as base; but for any long climb up either glacier, the climber must be equipped with tent, sleeping-bag, food, clothes, and sometimes a small spirit-stove. The great drawback to such mountaineering is that these necessaries must all be carried, and, as my guide considered that I had enough to do to carry myself, my only share was my own small camera.In Westland, an Alpine tent is made ofthin white mackintosh, with mackintosh floor and loose outer fly, also of mackintosh. The tent measures six feet by seven feet. The ridge-pole is of rope slipped through the top of the tent, and fastened securely to the spikes of two ice-axes set up at each end. The rope is next made firm round heavy stones, and the strings of the fly are held in place by more stones. Sleeping-bags are of eider-down or of blankets doubled over and stitched. For food you have bread, butter, tinned meats, tinned fruit, tea and milk. I spent several nights in a tent and found it surprisingly comfortable. When the tent has to be pitched on bare rock, the floor, in spite of extra clothing and a sleeping-bag, makes a hard bed, especially if bad weather compels you to stay in the tent longer than one night; but if it is possible to camp near shrubs, you can then collect branches and ferns, and these, packed closely together under the mackintosh, make a floor like a spring mattress. Whichever it was—either soft or hard—I contrived to sleep very well.My first long expedition from Waiho was up the Franz Josef Glacier to Cape DefianceHut, with a climb next day up Mount Moltke, a mountain which rises immediately behind the hut and is between seven and eight thousand feet in height. It is an easy climb.After an early breakfast we left the hut at half-past seven. First we climbed up a rough track through the bush, where coprosmas and currant-trees bore dense and gorgeous clusters of berries—red, yellow and pink; then over grassy slopes, and on and up, by rocky ridges and snowfields; again more rocks and more steep slopes of snow, until at eleven o'clock, we stood on the summit, with the pure air and the view for our reward.On one side is the sea, to-day only partially seen through great masses of cloud floating below us. On the other side, all was clear, and before us stretched, from north to south, the whole range of the main Divide, from Elie de Beaumont to Mount Cook and beyond—a vision of whiteness on their background of blue sky.While we watched, the distant peaks gradually disappeared behind white mist, and presently, as we climbed down the snow-slopes, we too were enveloped in mist, andwalked as grey ghosts in a ghostly world. Before reaching Cape Defiance, the mist cleared, and out shone the sun once more.From Waiho, the Franz Josef Glacier with its great white steps is a road ever beckoning onwards, and the ascent of Moltke is, so to speak, a halt by the way.It was the end of April, and the Franz Josef was even more deeply crevassed than the Tasman had been a month before; the weather too was unsettled, with heavy clouds in the west—not fit weather in which to begin a long climb. After ten days of watching and waiting, the weather cleared. We, that is, the guide and I, left Waiho on a radiant afternoon, and climbed up to Cape Defiance Hut. Here we were welcomed enthusiastically by keas, young and old, who chattered on the bushes or hopped inside the hut.The following day was still fine, so after an early lunch, we set out to cross the glacier, the guide carrying our tent, food and change of clothing. At first the ice was smooth and easy to walk on, gradually the cracks grew deeper and the ridges narrower, and I had to be roped and to wait patiently while many steps were cut, and twice the guide left me sitting on the rucksack and went ahead to pick out the best route for us both to take. The glacier here is steep as well as broken, and you climb a thousand feet in a very short time.i174ICE PINNACLES, ALMER GLACIER.To face page 149.We were by this time close to the side, opposite the Almer Glacier, a fine little glacier which fairly tumbles down the mountain side, ending in an extraordinary array of huge broken pinnacles, like so many Leaning Towers of Pisa—blocks of green and white ice, with summits half-melted and all ready to fall. We hurried quickly past, and, once on the mountain, were soon safe from danger of falling pinnacles or rolling boulder. A stiff climb of an hour took us up the ridge. First we climbed on loose shingle, then over rocks and slopes of slippery snow-grass; and, at about five thousand feet, we stood on the snow-line, among patches of snow, lying between big grey rocks. Even at this height, there were many roots of an Alpine ranunculus with leaves like those of an English buttercup, growing side by side with the edelweiss. The only bird was a tiny mountain wrenwith no tail, which fluttered about the rocks.Our tent was pitched on the bare rock, and, with the help of a spirit "cooker," we had an excellent hot stew, followed by tinned apricots and many cups of tea.At eight o'clock it began to rain, and rained or snowed quietly and continuously all night long. At dawn a thick mist hid glacier and mountains. We had hoped to climb up behind the Almer Glacier, and to ascend Mount Drummond, a mountain over eight thousand feet, which only one man, a surveyor, has ever climbed.With the weather in its present mood, we could only wait where we were, and in the intervals of eating and sleeping, we whiled away the time in playing patience, with the cards set out on a towel on the floor.It cleared a little in the afternoon, and we were able to crawl out and stretch our legs by scrambling up the rocks at the back of the tent. We felt cheered too, as we could again see the Franz Josef Glacier and dim outlines of the mountains.After a chilly night, we had breakfast bycandle-light at six o'clock. Later the sun rose in a cloudless, pale blue sky, showing snow lying in a thin covering close round our tent, and the tent fly coated with frozen sleet.In spite of blue sky the weather still looked uncertain—not suitable for our intended attempt to climb Mount Drummond. We could only take advantage of the good weather while it lasted, and so we climbed higher up the snow-slopes of the rock on which we had camped, and over a steep ridge above the snow-slopes. From this point we had an excellent view of the head of the Franz Josef, and could see some four miles of its course curving downwards far beneath in a confused mass of broken ice—white shot with blue. The glacier is fed by an immense field of pure white snow, behind which rise several high peaks of the Alps. Directly opposite us was Graham's Saddle—a broad white stairway leading between two of the peaks, and affording access, as I knew, to the Tasman Glacier on the other side. Rocky spurs run out from the dividing range, and from another range at right angles, into this vastsnowfield; and near the junction of the latter range with the Divide, Mount Spencer erects a steep, snowy cone of over 9,000 feet.On our way back to camp, we stopped to look for quartz crystals, which form here in quantities, and stick out at all angles from the sides and overhanging portions of the rocks: most of them are clear as glass, six-sided and sharply pointed, some are an opaque green; they vary in size from an eighth of an inch to two or three inches, and are very hard to detach, even with the sharp point of an ice-axe.As we rolled up the tent, the weather was clouding over, and no sooner were we well on the ice of the Franz Josef than snow began to fall, and continued falling until we reached Cape Defiance Hut.It was not an enjoyable tramp down the glacier in the driving snow and on ice with a surface of polished glass—indeed it was one of those days that make you wonder whether it is worth while to climb at all. One old kea emphatically disapproved; he joined us, and perched on the ice near, and remonstrated loudly with us at our rashness in venturingon such a day; at last, we spoke so threateningly that he flew off in disgust.We were soon soaked to the skin, as snow quickly finds its way through woollen jersey or tweed coat, and one cannot climb in a mackintosh. After six hours' incessant climbing, it was good to be safe inside the hut, and enjoy a fire, hot tea and dry blankets.After the snowstorm came a high wind, which howled furiously round the hut that night. It was blowing still, when on the following afternoon we started on our final three hours' climb down the glacier; but it was sunny too, and the hot sun had slightly melted the ice, and made it less slippery, so that climbing was easier than on the previous day. As we came back along the forest track to Waiho Gorge, the wind dropped completely, and the close of the day could not have been more lovely. There, behind the forests, stood Mount Drummond, and its resplendent whiteness and inaccessibility seemed to mock us from afar.The bad weather had made everyone in the valley anxious, fearing lest our tent might have been blown over or the glacier haveproved impassable, and that morning two men had set forth towards the glacier as a search party, and had returned relieved, after seeing two black specks moving among the ice-falls.Three weeks later we made another attempt to climb Mount Drummond.All went well between Waiho and Cape Defiance; the glacier was in perfect condition, and you could walk anywhere without the least difficulty.On the following day we crossed the glacier immediately below the hut, and were dismayed to find the surface more smoothly polished and glasslike than on the day when we came down from the Almer; we could not walk a yard without step-cutting, and we took two hours to climb three quarters of a mile. That brought us to the nearest point on the opposite side: to climb further would have been sheer waste of time. All we could do was to scramble a short way up the mountain side, and pitch the tent, hoping for better weather on the morrow. Alas for our hopes! The morning dawned dull and gloomy, with thick clouds rolling up from the sea, and by the time we had struckcamp, down came the rain, and we had a wet and tedious climb back to Cape Defiance.Rain poured in torrents all the next day, so we waited at the hut. The next day again was equally wet; however, at breakfast we finished our last crumbs of bread and biscuit, and were compelled to go, however bad the weather.The keas had entertained us during our stay at Cape Defiance by their absurd cries and friendly inquisitiveness, and a whole troop of them escorted us some way down the glacier, until finding our progress very slow, they flew away to shelter.We were absent so long, that when in the afternoon we walked calmly into the hotel, we found that a search party was intending to start with lanterns at five o'clock next morning to look for us.On the Fox Glacier we had fewer adventures, and were more successful in carrying through what we attempted, though there too we were compelled to strike camp in the rain and trudge back to the homestead, drenched to the skin and with our mountain unclimbed.At last came a bright sunny morning, freefrom any threatening cloud-bank out to sea. We set off hopefully on horseback and rode three miles through the bush to the foot of the glacier. We left the horses to feed along the track, then climbed for three hours up the glacier. Next we lighted a fire among the stones, in a sheltered nook under the steep mountain side, and had lunch and a short spell.Above its first smooth layers of ice the Fox is tremendously broken into gigantic pinnacles, impossible for climbing, and you are forced to take refuge amongst boulders and slippery rocks at the side. Higher still is the main ice-fall of the Fox—more pinnacles and ridges of ice coming down between the mountains in a wide frozen cascade—almost as magnificent as the great ice-fall on the Franz Josef. We crossed the glacier at the foot of the fall and did not attempt to climb up far among the séracs, but made for the side, and wormed our way up steep gullies through coarse wet grass, and then scrambled along smooth, glacier-worn rocks high above, where we held on carefully to flax, cotton-grass, or any overhanging branch.Late in the afternoon we came out on the bed of a precipitous creek, and on the further side of it found a small platform, some ten feet by seven, thickly overgrown with rank green grass, open to the glacier on one side, and on the others ringed about closely with many trees. Here we pitched the tent, with a soft floor of ferns and the leafy branches of veronicas, senecios and broadleaf trees. A fireplace of stones was soon built against the mountain side among ferns and biddies, and the wood fire burnt cheerily: it was too cold for sitting outside, so we had dinner inside the tent, looking out at our camp-fire and the dark cliff beyond the noisy creek; later the moon rose, showing the glacier beneath, white in the moonlight.At 9 p.m. we crawled into our sleeping-bags and slept. We awoke cold during the night, but after warming the tent with a small spirit lamp, we ate slices of currant loaf, and soon went to sleep again. At four-thirty the camp fire was lighted, and at five o'clock we had breakfast. It was an excellent breakfast of tea, bread and butter and delicious nectarine jam, and I even had a boiled egg.At seven we left our camp and set off up the creek-bed for the summit of Chancellor Ridge. The dawn was clear and cold, with the glacier and forests in cold grey shadow; the sea was a quiet grey, and above the horizon we saw the shadow of the earth in deep blue-grey on a sky of orange. Striking away from the creek across slopes of snow grass, we climbed up rocky ridges, and at about five thousand feet came out on a bare ridge, where I was put on the rope: then on up a steep snowfield, and over a rounded dome of snow where the surface was like pie-crust; next over slippery ice which had a sprinkling of snow, and where steps had to be chipped. Finally we had a stiff climb up the actual summit—a short and steep knob of rock, half concealed by snow; and on the top we found a tiny ledge of grey rock, with streaks of white and green quartz, and scanty green moss clinging to it. The summit is only between seven and eight thousand feet high, in New Zealand hardly to be considered a mountain, still, when we gained it successfully, my guide said briefly: "First lady to reach the summit, I must congratulate you." So we shook hands and were happy.i186MOUNT MOLTKE AND VICTORIA GLACIER FROM CHANCELLOR RIDGE.To face page 159.It was now ten o'clock and brilliantly sunny, and we stood alone in a world of snow. Below lay the head of the Fox Glacier—a great snowfield encircled by mountains. Immediately above the head of the glacier stood Mount Tasman, only a couple of miles from us, its base firmly planted in the snow, from base to summit clothed in a spotless mantle of pure white. On the far side of the range bounding the Fox, was Mount Cook: as seen from this point, a snow mountain of one aspiring peak. To the left of Tasman stretched a succession of snow-clad mountains, continuing until joined by another range at right-angles. Rising in a mountain at the head of the latter range, was the Victoria Glacier—a long river of dirty white ice, flowing down towards the Fox in a deep valley on the left of Chancellor Ridge.The main direction of the Southern Alps is parallel with the coastline, and when we turned our backs upon Mount Tasman we looked across the Victoria Glacier to a dazzling snow peak beyond, and down the Fox valley withits forest ranges to boundless miles of blue sea. On the sea—apparently floating on its surface—were narrow strips of cloud—grey, white and gold—and on the shore, some twenty miles distant, we saw lines of white surf on the irregular beaches between the tree-clad bluffs.After a well-earned lunch of sardines, sandwiches and pineapple, we retraced our steps down the slopes of snow to the rocky ridge, and from there took a different route and climbed down a steep rock-face. It was not very easy climbing, as the ground, sheltered from the sun, was still frozen hard; so my guide kept a cautious hand on the rope, while I found foothold and handhold. Below the rock-face we came back to snow grass and stony creeks, and so to last night's camping ground.At half-past two we left the camp for the climb down. While we were still on the glacier, the sun set in a sky of deep red, changing to orange, yellow and pale blue. Ice-steps are hard to see in the short New Zealand dusk, and by the time we reached the final moraine it was quite dark, and we congratulated ourselveson being safely off the ice. No horses were to be found, so we had to walk for the last three miles through the bush, and at half-past seven walked quietly into the farmhouse sitting-room, tired but triumphant.For a final view of the mountains, nothing can be better than a ride down the Waiho river-bed to the coast. The Waiho is a short river of thirteen miles, flowing in a river-bed three-quarters of a mile wide. It flows always as a roaring torrent, sometimes a narrow blue stream through the grey stones, but in flood-time a mighty river of yellow water churning madly between its banks, and whirling along with it lumps of ice, stones and mighty forest trees. By the river banks and on rocky islands in its bed are many low-growing shrubs, most of them some variety of coprosma—"black scrub" as the settlers call it—which may either creep along the ground or grow to a height of ten feet; and in the autumn every bush, large and small, was laden with berries—berries of black, crimson, scarlet, orange, white, grey or blue. Many of the berries are translucent, and shine in the sunlight like beads of Venetian glass, and thetrees are blue or red from top to bottom with only slight suggestions of green leaf and black twig. In New Zealand the mistletoe berry is yellow, and was particularly abundant this autumn, growing on any tree, among branches already lavishly gay. Above the river banks tall currant-trees bear clusters of pink, white or black berries, while the pines have berries of red or purple. Often too, hanging from the branches of the trees, and twining round the ferns and drooping grey-green "gie-gies" which clothe their trunks, are garlands of scarlet supple-jack.With the Waiho at its normal level, one can ride close to the water, and the horses will pick their way carefully among the boulders and fallen tree-trunks, cantering on any smooth stretch of grass. While the horse chooses the way, his rider is free to give full attention to the beauty of river, mountain and forest.Looking back from the mouth of the river we saw the whole range of the Alps. In the centre of the picture was the Franz Josef Glacier with its immense white snowfield behind, and the Almer Glacier flowing into it onthe left: prominent above the snowfield stood Mount Spencer in raiment of white, like a stately lady proud of her position: stretching away from Mount Spencer and the Franz Josef Glacier on either side, as far as eye could see, peak after peak was outlined in delicate purity against the blue, the summits varying in height and shape, some broad and rounded, others sharp and pointed, no peak standing out unduly from the rest—a range of mountains absolutely right in proportion, one harmonious whole, and all beautiful together. As seen from here, the Alps have as foreground forest-clad mountains encircling the Franz Josef Glacier and rising one behind the other below the snowy peaks; gradually they give place to quite low hills and to the scrub of the river-bed on which our horses stood.As we rode on towards the sea, we passed clear pools left by the river in the shingle, and in the still water the mountains were reflected; we saw Mount Cook, Tasman and the rest at our very feet, while in reality they were at a distance of forty miles and more.To-day all was calm, but the Waiho in itsshort course of thirteen miles can be cruel and terrible, and only lately a man was drowned as he tried to cross it. Lying in the river-bed are the gaunt bleached corpses of forest-trees, a few all the way and very many at the mouth, where they lie thickly along the shore; these trees had their roots undermined by the Waiho in flood-time, and when the flood went down the trees fell and died—they were the one sad sight of an otherwise perfect morning.After rounding a steep bush-clad bluff, we came out on the shore of the Tasman Sea, a quiet grey and blue sea, with the tide coming in, and great white curling breakers dashing against the beach—those mighty breakers which are ever rolling on the Pacific coasts—we cantered through the surf on firm grey sand, the spray flying round us as we rode. Ever in the distance, against the blue, rose the snowy peaks, whose loveliness compelled us to look again and yet again, until it was a relief to rest the eyes on the grey sameness of the sand.Forty years ago this beach was thronged with miners seeking gold; now not one lives here, and there is very little gold left, though we did come across three "beach combers," who were washing sand in wooden troughs, in the hope of finding a deposit of gold at the bottom.i193SOUTHERN ALPS FROM MOUTH OF WAIHO RIVER.To face page 164.The bluffs, which here run down to the sea, are ancient glacial moraines—high-piled heaps of boulders and loose soil, covered now with wind-swept tea-tree bushes, tall forest trees and crimson rata vine, and between the headlands, where once the glaciers flowed, are peaceful lagoons bordered with flax plants and rushes.At low tide you may skirt the bluffs on the sand between sea and cliff, but sometimes you must ride over them—up a steep track through scrub and forest, where a horse accustomed to the beach will carry you safely; and from his back, you look down through tall brown trunks on the blue sea far below.A ride of six miles from the mouth of the Waiho brings you to Okarito—a tiny township and port—its one street all grass-grown, and only a few houses and the wharf to mark what was, in the days of gold, a big and thriving town. In those days it had two Churches,many banks and hotels, and in the saloons, gay doings night after night.Another eight mile ride through the forest brought us to a small hotel, where I joined the mail coach which took me back to trains and towns, and very sorrowfully I said goodbye to the mountains and to my friends in Westland.
THE WESTLAND GLACIERS
I was back at Waiho Gorge and content—seventy miles from the nearest train, and with a mail once a week.
At Waiho, there are a few small huts, three cottages and the hotel. The Glacier Hotel is a two-storied wooden building, with verandah and balcony, and accommodation for between thirty and forty; it has a dining-room, smoking-room and two sitting-rooms, in one of which is an excellent piano; there are two bathrooms with a good supply of hot and cold water, and soon the house will be lighted by electricity—the power to be brought from a convenient waterfall close by. Under the same roof is a store, where you can buy groceries, boot-laces and tobacco, and in the same store you find a post-office with a telephone—that indispensable luxury of the back blocks. It is in the parish of Ross, and four times a year the Anglican clergyman drives seventymiles to hold a service. While I was staying here, the Bishop of Christchurch took a journey of two hundred miles to conduct a Confirmation in the smoking-room: there were nine candidates, some of whom had come more than forty miles. The Presbyterian minister also comes from Ross and holds a service, and sometimes the Roman Catholic priest spends a night at the hotel.
At this hotel, tourists may feel that they are visitors and friends, so kindly is their welcome, and so homelike and pleasant are the arrangements made for them. No one need be dull—something is always happening—a draper comes through with his pack of goods for sale; a farmer rides up with his daughters from a homestead thirty miles south, on their way to a dance held in a hall twenty miles further on; news too continually filters through—for the settlers all know one another, and take the keenest interest in each other's welfare. Catering is sometimes difficult. There are cows for milk, chickens and a kitchen garden, sheep too, in paddocks not far off; but all other provisions must either come in the weekly coach or by steamer tothe small township of Okarito, seventeen miles away. Okarito is like other west coast harbours, in having a bar, which, in stormy weather, makes it impossible for even a small steamer to enter or leave the port. Often, for weeks at a time, the inhabitants of Waiho Gorge must depend on the mail coach for their supplies.
I had come back to learn more of the mountains and their ways, if only the weather would allow me to climb.
For a short expedition up the Franz Josef Glacier, a hut stocked with provisions and blankets stands ready a few hours' tramp from Waiho, and for a day on the Fox, the farmhouse at Weheka serves as base; but for any long climb up either glacier, the climber must be equipped with tent, sleeping-bag, food, clothes, and sometimes a small spirit-stove. The great drawback to such mountaineering is that these necessaries must all be carried, and, as my guide considered that I had enough to do to carry myself, my only share was my own small camera.
In Westland, an Alpine tent is made ofthin white mackintosh, with mackintosh floor and loose outer fly, also of mackintosh. The tent measures six feet by seven feet. The ridge-pole is of rope slipped through the top of the tent, and fastened securely to the spikes of two ice-axes set up at each end. The rope is next made firm round heavy stones, and the strings of the fly are held in place by more stones. Sleeping-bags are of eider-down or of blankets doubled over and stitched. For food you have bread, butter, tinned meats, tinned fruit, tea and milk. I spent several nights in a tent and found it surprisingly comfortable. When the tent has to be pitched on bare rock, the floor, in spite of extra clothing and a sleeping-bag, makes a hard bed, especially if bad weather compels you to stay in the tent longer than one night; but if it is possible to camp near shrubs, you can then collect branches and ferns, and these, packed closely together under the mackintosh, make a floor like a spring mattress. Whichever it was—either soft or hard—I contrived to sleep very well.
My first long expedition from Waiho was up the Franz Josef Glacier to Cape DefianceHut, with a climb next day up Mount Moltke, a mountain which rises immediately behind the hut and is between seven and eight thousand feet in height. It is an easy climb.
After an early breakfast we left the hut at half-past seven. First we climbed up a rough track through the bush, where coprosmas and currant-trees bore dense and gorgeous clusters of berries—red, yellow and pink; then over grassy slopes, and on and up, by rocky ridges and snowfields; again more rocks and more steep slopes of snow, until at eleven o'clock, we stood on the summit, with the pure air and the view for our reward.
On one side is the sea, to-day only partially seen through great masses of cloud floating below us. On the other side, all was clear, and before us stretched, from north to south, the whole range of the main Divide, from Elie de Beaumont to Mount Cook and beyond—a vision of whiteness on their background of blue sky.
While we watched, the distant peaks gradually disappeared behind white mist, and presently, as we climbed down the snow-slopes, we too were enveloped in mist, andwalked as grey ghosts in a ghostly world. Before reaching Cape Defiance, the mist cleared, and out shone the sun once more.
From Waiho, the Franz Josef Glacier with its great white steps is a road ever beckoning onwards, and the ascent of Moltke is, so to speak, a halt by the way.
It was the end of April, and the Franz Josef was even more deeply crevassed than the Tasman had been a month before; the weather too was unsettled, with heavy clouds in the west—not fit weather in which to begin a long climb. After ten days of watching and waiting, the weather cleared. We, that is, the guide and I, left Waiho on a radiant afternoon, and climbed up to Cape Defiance Hut. Here we were welcomed enthusiastically by keas, young and old, who chattered on the bushes or hopped inside the hut.
The following day was still fine, so after an early lunch, we set out to cross the glacier, the guide carrying our tent, food and change of clothing. At first the ice was smooth and easy to walk on, gradually the cracks grew deeper and the ridges narrower, and I had to be roped and to wait patiently while many steps were cut, and twice the guide left me sitting on the rucksack and went ahead to pick out the best route for us both to take. The glacier here is steep as well as broken, and you climb a thousand feet in a very short time.
i174
ICE PINNACLES, ALMER GLACIER.
ICE PINNACLES, ALMER GLACIER.
ICE PINNACLES, ALMER GLACIER.
To face page 149.
We were by this time close to the side, opposite the Almer Glacier, a fine little glacier which fairly tumbles down the mountain side, ending in an extraordinary array of huge broken pinnacles, like so many Leaning Towers of Pisa—blocks of green and white ice, with summits half-melted and all ready to fall. We hurried quickly past, and, once on the mountain, were soon safe from danger of falling pinnacles or rolling boulder. A stiff climb of an hour took us up the ridge. First we climbed on loose shingle, then over rocks and slopes of slippery snow-grass; and, at about five thousand feet, we stood on the snow-line, among patches of snow, lying between big grey rocks. Even at this height, there were many roots of an Alpine ranunculus with leaves like those of an English buttercup, growing side by side with the edelweiss. The only bird was a tiny mountain wrenwith no tail, which fluttered about the rocks.
Our tent was pitched on the bare rock, and, with the help of a spirit "cooker," we had an excellent hot stew, followed by tinned apricots and many cups of tea.
At eight o'clock it began to rain, and rained or snowed quietly and continuously all night long. At dawn a thick mist hid glacier and mountains. We had hoped to climb up behind the Almer Glacier, and to ascend Mount Drummond, a mountain over eight thousand feet, which only one man, a surveyor, has ever climbed.
With the weather in its present mood, we could only wait where we were, and in the intervals of eating and sleeping, we whiled away the time in playing patience, with the cards set out on a towel on the floor.
It cleared a little in the afternoon, and we were able to crawl out and stretch our legs by scrambling up the rocks at the back of the tent. We felt cheered too, as we could again see the Franz Josef Glacier and dim outlines of the mountains.
After a chilly night, we had breakfast bycandle-light at six o'clock. Later the sun rose in a cloudless, pale blue sky, showing snow lying in a thin covering close round our tent, and the tent fly coated with frozen sleet.
In spite of blue sky the weather still looked uncertain—not suitable for our intended attempt to climb Mount Drummond. We could only take advantage of the good weather while it lasted, and so we climbed higher up the snow-slopes of the rock on which we had camped, and over a steep ridge above the snow-slopes. From this point we had an excellent view of the head of the Franz Josef, and could see some four miles of its course curving downwards far beneath in a confused mass of broken ice—white shot with blue. The glacier is fed by an immense field of pure white snow, behind which rise several high peaks of the Alps. Directly opposite us was Graham's Saddle—a broad white stairway leading between two of the peaks, and affording access, as I knew, to the Tasman Glacier on the other side. Rocky spurs run out from the dividing range, and from another range at right angles, into this vastsnowfield; and near the junction of the latter range with the Divide, Mount Spencer erects a steep, snowy cone of over 9,000 feet.
On our way back to camp, we stopped to look for quartz crystals, which form here in quantities, and stick out at all angles from the sides and overhanging portions of the rocks: most of them are clear as glass, six-sided and sharply pointed, some are an opaque green; they vary in size from an eighth of an inch to two or three inches, and are very hard to detach, even with the sharp point of an ice-axe.
As we rolled up the tent, the weather was clouding over, and no sooner were we well on the ice of the Franz Josef than snow began to fall, and continued falling until we reached Cape Defiance Hut.
It was not an enjoyable tramp down the glacier in the driving snow and on ice with a surface of polished glass—indeed it was one of those days that make you wonder whether it is worth while to climb at all. One old kea emphatically disapproved; he joined us, and perched on the ice near, and remonstrated loudly with us at our rashness in venturingon such a day; at last, we spoke so threateningly that he flew off in disgust.
We were soon soaked to the skin, as snow quickly finds its way through woollen jersey or tweed coat, and one cannot climb in a mackintosh. After six hours' incessant climbing, it was good to be safe inside the hut, and enjoy a fire, hot tea and dry blankets.
After the snowstorm came a high wind, which howled furiously round the hut that night. It was blowing still, when on the following afternoon we started on our final three hours' climb down the glacier; but it was sunny too, and the hot sun had slightly melted the ice, and made it less slippery, so that climbing was easier than on the previous day. As we came back along the forest track to Waiho Gorge, the wind dropped completely, and the close of the day could not have been more lovely. There, behind the forests, stood Mount Drummond, and its resplendent whiteness and inaccessibility seemed to mock us from afar.
The bad weather had made everyone in the valley anxious, fearing lest our tent might have been blown over or the glacier haveproved impassable, and that morning two men had set forth towards the glacier as a search party, and had returned relieved, after seeing two black specks moving among the ice-falls.
Three weeks later we made another attempt to climb Mount Drummond.
All went well between Waiho and Cape Defiance; the glacier was in perfect condition, and you could walk anywhere without the least difficulty.
On the following day we crossed the glacier immediately below the hut, and were dismayed to find the surface more smoothly polished and glasslike than on the day when we came down from the Almer; we could not walk a yard without step-cutting, and we took two hours to climb three quarters of a mile. That brought us to the nearest point on the opposite side: to climb further would have been sheer waste of time. All we could do was to scramble a short way up the mountain side, and pitch the tent, hoping for better weather on the morrow. Alas for our hopes! The morning dawned dull and gloomy, with thick clouds rolling up from the sea, and by the time we had struckcamp, down came the rain, and we had a wet and tedious climb back to Cape Defiance.
Rain poured in torrents all the next day, so we waited at the hut. The next day again was equally wet; however, at breakfast we finished our last crumbs of bread and biscuit, and were compelled to go, however bad the weather.
The keas had entertained us during our stay at Cape Defiance by their absurd cries and friendly inquisitiveness, and a whole troop of them escorted us some way down the glacier, until finding our progress very slow, they flew away to shelter.
We were absent so long, that when in the afternoon we walked calmly into the hotel, we found that a search party was intending to start with lanterns at five o'clock next morning to look for us.
On the Fox Glacier we had fewer adventures, and were more successful in carrying through what we attempted, though there too we were compelled to strike camp in the rain and trudge back to the homestead, drenched to the skin and with our mountain unclimbed.
At last came a bright sunny morning, freefrom any threatening cloud-bank out to sea. We set off hopefully on horseback and rode three miles through the bush to the foot of the glacier. We left the horses to feed along the track, then climbed for three hours up the glacier. Next we lighted a fire among the stones, in a sheltered nook under the steep mountain side, and had lunch and a short spell.
Above its first smooth layers of ice the Fox is tremendously broken into gigantic pinnacles, impossible for climbing, and you are forced to take refuge amongst boulders and slippery rocks at the side. Higher still is the main ice-fall of the Fox—more pinnacles and ridges of ice coming down between the mountains in a wide frozen cascade—almost as magnificent as the great ice-fall on the Franz Josef. We crossed the glacier at the foot of the fall and did not attempt to climb up far among the séracs, but made for the side, and wormed our way up steep gullies through coarse wet grass, and then scrambled along smooth, glacier-worn rocks high above, where we held on carefully to flax, cotton-grass, or any overhanging branch.
Late in the afternoon we came out on the bed of a precipitous creek, and on the further side of it found a small platform, some ten feet by seven, thickly overgrown with rank green grass, open to the glacier on one side, and on the others ringed about closely with many trees. Here we pitched the tent, with a soft floor of ferns and the leafy branches of veronicas, senecios and broadleaf trees. A fireplace of stones was soon built against the mountain side among ferns and biddies, and the wood fire burnt cheerily: it was too cold for sitting outside, so we had dinner inside the tent, looking out at our camp-fire and the dark cliff beyond the noisy creek; later the moon rose, showing the glacier beneath, white in the moonlight.
At 9 p.m. we crawled into our sleeping-bags and slept. We awoke cold during the night, but after warming the tent with a small spirit lamp, we ate slices of currant loaf, and soon went to sleep again. At four-thirty the camp fire was lighted, and at five o'clock we had breakfast. It was an excellent breakfast of tea, bread and butter and delicious nectarine jam, and I even had a boiled egg.
At seven we left our camp and set off up the creek-bed for the summit of Chancellor Ridge. The dawn was clear and cold, with the glacier and forests in cold grey shadow; the sea was a quiet grey, and above the horizon we saw the shadow of the earth in deep blue-grey on a sky of orange. Striking away from the creek across slopes of snow grass, we climbed up rocky ridges, and at about five thousand feet came out on a bare ridge, where I was put on the rope: then on up a steep snowfield, and over a rounded dome of snow where the surface was like pie-crust; next over slippery ice which had a sprinkling of snow, and where steps had to be chipped. Finally we had a stiff climb up the actual summit—a short and steep knob of rock, half concealed by snow; and on the top we found a tiny ledge of grey rock, with streaks of white and green quartz, and scanty green moss clinging to it. The summit is only between seven and eight thousand feet high, in New Zealand hardly to be considered a mountain, still, when we gained it successfully, my guide said briefly: "First lady to reach the summit, I must congratulate you." So we shook hands and were happy.
i186
MOUNT MOLTKE AND VICTORIA GLACIER FROM CHANCELLOR RIDGE.
MOUNT MOLTKE AND VICTORIA GLACIER FROM CHANCELLOR RIDGE.
MOUNT MOLTKE AND VICTORIA GLACIER FROM CHANCELLOR RIDGE.
To face page 159.
It was now ten o'clock and brilliantly sunny, and we stood alone in a world of snow. Below lay the head of the Fox Glacier—a great snowfield encircled by mountains. Immediately above the head of the glacier stood Mount Tasman, only a couple of miles from us, its base firmly planted in the snow, from base to summit clothed in a spotless mantle of pure white. On the far side of the range bounding the Fox, was Mount Cook: as seen from this point, a snow mountain of one aspiring peak. To the left of Tasman stretched a succession of snow-clad mountains, continuing until joined by another range at right-angles. Rising in a mountain at the head of the latter range, was the Victoria Glacier—a long river of dirty white ice, flowing down towards the Fox in a deep valley on the left of Chancellor Ridge.
The main direction of the Southern Alps is parallel with the coastline, and when we turned our backs upon Mount Tasman we looked across the Victoria Glacier to a dazzling snow peak beyond, and down the Fox valley withits forest ranges to boundless miles of blue sea. On the sea—apparently floating on its surface—were narrow strips of cloud—grey, white and gold—and on the shore, some twenty miles distant, we saw lines of white surf on the irregular beaches between the tree-clad bluffs.
After a well-earned lunch of sardines, sandwiches and pineapple, we retraced our steps down the slopes of snow to the rocky ridge, and from there took a different route and climbed down a steep rock-face. It was not very easy climbing, as the ground, sheltered from the sun, was still frozen hard; so my guide kept a cautious hand on the rope, while I found foothold and handhold. Below the rock-face we came back to snow grass and stony creeks, and so to last night's camping ground.
At half-past two we left the camp for the climb down. While we were still on the glacier, the sun set in a sky of deep red, changing to orange, yellow and pale blue. Ice-steps are hard to see in the short New Zealand dusk, and by the time we reached the final moraine it was quite dark, and we congratulated ourselveson being safely off the ice. No horses were to be found, so we had to walk for the last three miles through the bush, and at half-past seven walked quietly into the farmhouse sitting-room, tired but triumphant.
For a final view of the mountains, nothing can be better than a ride down the Waiho river-bed to the coast. The Waiho is a short river of thirteen miles, flowing in a river-bed three-quarters of a mile wide. It flows always as a roaring torrent, sometimes a narrow blue stream through the grey stones, but in flood-time a mighty river of yellow water churning madly between its banks, and whirling along with it lumps of ice, stones and mighty forest trees. By the river banks and on rocky islands in its bed are many low-growing shrubs, most of them some variety of coprosma—"black scrub" as the settlers call it—which may either creep along the ground or grow to a height of ten feet; and in the autumn every bush, large and small, was laden with berries—berries of black, crimson, scarlet, orange, white, grey or blue. Many of the berries are translucent, and shine in the sunlight like beads of Venetian glass, and thetrees are blue or red from top to bottom with only slight suggestions of green leaf and black twig. In New Zealand the mistletoe berry is yellow, and was particularly abundant this autumn, growing on any tree, among branches already lavishly gay. Above the river banks tall currant-trees bear clusters of pink, white or black berries, while the pines have berries of red or purple. Often too, hanging from the branches of the trees, and twining round the ferns and drooping grey-green "gie-gies" which clothe their trunks, are garlands of scarlet supple-jack.
With the Waiho at its normal level, one can ride close to the water, and the horses will pick their way carefully among the boulders and fallen tree-trunks, cantering on any smooth stretch of grass. While the horse chooses the way, his rider is free to give full attention to the beauty of river, mountain and forest.
Looking back from the mouth of the river we saw the whole range of the Alps. In the centre of the picture was the Franz Josef Glacier with its immense white snowfield behind, and the Almer Glacier flowing into it onthe left: prominent above the snowfield stood Mount Spencer in raiment of white, like a stately lady proud of her position: stretching away from Mount Spencer and the Franz Josef Glacier on either side, as far as eye could see, peak after peak was outlined in delicate purity against the blue, the summits varying in height and shape, some broad and rounded, others sharp and pointed, no peak standing out unduly from the rest—a range of mountains absolutely right in proportion, one harmonious whole, and all beautiful together. As seen from here, the Alps have as foreground forest-clad mountains encircling the Franz Josef Glacier and rising one behind the other below the snowy peaks; gradually they give place to quite low hills and to the scrub of the river-bed on which our horses stood.
As we rode on towards the sea, we passed clear pools left by the river in the shingle, and in the still water the mountains were reflected; we saw Mount Cook, Tasman and the rest at our very feet, while in reality they were at a distance of forty miles and more.
To-day all was calm, but the Waiho in itsshort course of thirteen miles can be cruel and terrible, and only lately a man was drowned as he tried to cross it. Lying in the river-bed are the gaunt bleached corpses of forest-trees, a few all the way and very many at the mouth, where they lie thickly along the shore; these trees had their roots undermined by the Waiho in flood-time, and when the flood went down the trees fell and died—they were the one sad sight of an otherwise perfect morning.
After rounding a steep bush-clad bluff, we came out on the shore of the Tasman Sea, a quiet grey and blue sea, with the tide coming in, and great white curling breakers dashing against the beach—those mighty breakers which are ever rolling on the Pacific coasts—we cantered through the surf on firm grey sand, the spray flying round us as we rode. Ever in the distance, against the blue, rose the snowy peaks, whose loveliness compelled us to look again and yet again, until it was a relief to rest the eyes on the grey sameness of the sand.
Forty years ago this beach was thronged with miners seeking gold; now not one lives here, and there is very little gold left, though we did come across three "beach combers," who were washing sand in wooden troughs, in the hope of finding a deposit of gold at the bottom.
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SOUTHERN ALPS FROM MOUTH OF WAIHO RIVER.
SOUTHERN ALPS FROM MOUTH OF WAIHO RIVER.
SOUTHERN ALPS FROM MOUTH OF WAIHO RIVER.
To face page 164.
The bluffs, which here run down to the sea, are ancient glacial moraines—high-piled heaps of boulders and loose soil, covered now with wind-swept tea-tree bushes, tall forest trees and crimson rata vine, and between the headlands, where once the glaciers flowed, are peaceful lagoons bordered with flax plants and rushes.
At low tide you may skirt the bluffs on the sand between sea and cliff, but sometimes you must ride over them—up a steep track through scrub and forest, where a horse accustomed to the beach will carry you safely; and from his back, you look down through tall brown trunks on the blue sea far below.
A ride of six miles from the mouth of the Waiho brings you to Okarito—a tiny township and port—its one street all grass-grown, and only a few houses and the wharf to mark what was, in the days of gold, a big and thriving town. In those days it had two Churches,many banks and hotels, and in the saloons, gay doings night after night.
Another eight mile ride through the forest brought us to a small hotel, where I joined the mail coach which took me back to trains and towns, and very sorrowfully I said goodbye to the mountains and to my friends in Westland.