THE COLD LAKES OF OTAGO
One of the favourite holiday excursions in the South Island is to
the Cold Lakes of Otago.
In England it is hardly necessary to explain that lakes are cold,
but in New Zealand you never know--you find a pool of hot sulphur
water under the Southern Alps, and hot creeks and lakes in the
thermal district of North Island.
The largest of the Otago lakes is Wakatipu--a lake like a beautiful
blue serpent. It is fifty miles long and varies in width from one
mile to three and a half, as it winds in and out among stately
mountains. Situated on one of the curves is Queenstown, a regal
little city by the great lake, happily remote from the world and
its bustle. It has no railway, and you reach it either by motor
car, or more often by steamer--a delightful trip of twenty-five
miles from the southern end of the lake.
I meant to spend one week at Queenstown, but the place and its
surroundings are so beautiful, and I met such a number of pleasant
people there, that in the end I stayed for three weeks, and left
with many regrets. There are several good hotels. The one at which
I stayed was separated from the lake only by a broad road. From
the windows of the hotel I looked out upon tall drooping willows,
fringing the blue water; and sometimes at sunset saw a wonderful
display of crimson and gold behind grim purple mountains towards
the head of the lake. The lake is stocked with trout; enormous
specimens came right up to the landing stage to be fed; these
particular fish are pets of the town and may on no account be
killed.
From Queenstown tourists are driven to the Skipper's Gorge. It is
a drive of sixteen miles through a strange country of bleak and
rugged hills, which are bare of all vegetation but scanty, coarse
grass and occasional low-growing shrubs; and on the hillsides gaunt
grey rocks stand up, like pillars or ruined castles. Sheep can
find pasturage on the hills, and as you drive up, you see in the
valleys scattered homesteads on the stations, or the school of
some tiny township. The district is thinly populated now, but in
the sixties and the days of the Otago gold-rush, mines abounded in
every little river-bed: a fair amount of gold is still found by
sluicing and dredging.
Life is lonely and hard in these far back places, either on station
or gold-claim; and sometimes you hear sad tales of men and women,
whom the loneliness drives to drink or suicide.
The Skipper's Drive is a marvel of engineering. The road is cut out
of the sides of the hills and the narrow thread winds round them,
with often on the one hand a precipice over a hundred feet deep,
and no protection beyond a low stone coping or a few inches of
rough soil. The drivers are always skilful, and horses bred among
the mountains can be trusted to keep their feet, so there is little
need for alarm.
Some of these remote valleys have wide and deep rivers and not many
bridges. When the river-bank is high on both sides, wire ropes are
stretched across and a very simple wooden cage hung on the ropes,
and anyone wishing to cross sits on the floor of the cage with his
legs dangling over the river-bed and pulls himself to the opposite
side. At the Skipper's Gorge we found a cage of this kind, and I
was able to enjoy crossing a river in such an unusual way. On a
calm day there is no difficulty, but it must be dangerous in a high
wind.
The most delightful tracks round Queenstown are either for walking
or riding. Whichever way you go--up one of the hills or along a
track near Lake Wakatipu, you are always surrounded by wonderful
scenery.
From the top of Ben Lomond, at a height of between five and six
thousand feet, you look down upon the lake, in colour a bright
blue, toning to purple at the sides; rising steeply from the water,
and sloping away from it to bare jagged peaks are mountains of five
and six thousand feet; while far away, encircling the lake-head,
are yet higher peaks, and to east and north, piled one behind
the other, peaks and ever more peaks, purple and grey or whitely
crowned with snow.
Riding near the lake, you see everything more intimately. There
are pines and weeping willows by road or track, gum-trees and
poplars in garden and paddock; on the hillside are the tall,
fresh, green fronds and the withered, brown ones of the bracken,
making an undergrowth for elegant cabbage-trees, sturdy fuchsias
and currants, and trailing bush lawyers. Below, in the still, blue
water is an exact reflection of each outline of the purple hills
above.
A steamer goes on certain days each week from Queenstown to the
northern end of the lake. Beyond, after a twelve mile drive, you
reach two hotels and some scattered sheep-runs, on the very edge of
cultivation. Here are wide river-valleys and tiny lakes, towering
mountains and snowy glaciers; and the hills are clothed with
magnificent beech forests, through which few people have as yet
attempted to penetrate.
I finally left Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown by motor coach. A drive
of forty-eight miles took me to Lake Wanaka.
It was a sunny summer day, and all was gay; the hills were blue
and the valleys green. As the car zig-zagged up the Crown Range,
we looked down on the blue surface of Wakatipu shimmering in the
sunlight, and on the windings of the Molyneux River twisting among
the hills in ribbons of blue--a blue more vivid and intense than
that of the shining sky overhead.
At Wanaka is a tiny township, named Pembroke. Here I stayed at a
one-storied wooden hotel of many detached passages and cubicles,
all standing in an old-fashioned English garden. This garden had
wide herbaceous borders crowded with flowers; tall, drooping
willows and excellent vegetables; and among the flower-beds were
apple trees, and many plum trees laden with more ripe plums than
the proprietor or his guests could possibly eat. There was even a
giant mulberry tree, heavily laden with fruit.
From Pembroke, visitors go in an oil launch, capable of holding
sixty passengers, on an excursion of forty miles up the lake and
picnic at the head of it.
I do not think the reflections on Wanaka are quite so marvellous
as on Wakatipu, but the lake as a whole is equally beautiful, and
the general plan is the same in both--a long narrow lake among high
mountain-peaks.
The mountains which surround Wakatipu are bare of any but small
low-growing trees, and on that account you see and enjoy their
outlines more perfectly; but on the other hand, the tall, dense
forest-growth, which fills many of the mountain gullies and fringes
the shore of Wanaka, gives to the landscape an added richness.
As at Wakatipu, the mountains which surround Wanaka are only the
foreground for other and higher peaks, stretching ever to the west,
purple or streaked with snow.
There are small islands in the lake. At one of these we
disembarked, and climbed up a steep track among the scrub. At the
top we found, nestling under a rocky crag, a charming lakelet of
three acres, at a level of four hundred feet above the main lake.
Round the irregular, rocky shore of the tiny lake grow trees--ratas
and other smaller ones--leaning over the water; and in the lake are
minute islands with little stunted trees--all as though planned by
some Japanese artist You stand at the edge of the Japanese garden,
and look through its fringing trees and out upon the big blue lake
to steep, bare hills beyond.
Pembroke is a centre from which to go deerstalking. I saw no deer,
but later in Christchurch I saw fine antlers which some sportsman
had bagged.
Coaches and motor cars connect Pembroke with Clyde and the railway
of Central Otago.
I chose to go by motor thinking it would be quicker, but alas! the
road is rough, and the car broke down; and I had to be picked up by
the horse coach, which obligingly ran on the same day.
Clyde is on the edge of the fruit-growing district. At the hotel,
I soon made friends with an elderly gentleman who took me to
see peaches and apricots growing as standards; and the owner of
the trees let me pick as many peaches as I could eat--and very
delicious they were!
Next day Clyde had a fruit and flower show in the town hall, and
the farmers round all came to exhibit their produce and to see
what others were doing. It was a little show, but held much promise
of great things in the future.
The peaches were excellent and so were the plums and apples, there
were very few apricots, but good, ripe figs and blackberries: the
presence of any blackberries at all in the show was perplexing, as
throughout New Zealand the English blackberry bramble has grown and
spread far too vigorously, and is now considered a "noxious weed,"
which must be destroyed whenever possible. In the vegetable section
were good clean tomatoes, pumpkins, potatoes, beans and carrots.
For plants in pots the competition was slight, and a fuchsia and
two small heliotropes all won prizes. There were two stiff bouquets
and a few table decorations, and on a raised platform, freehand
drawings from the primary schools, and several good specimens of
embroidery and plain needlework.
The main purpose of the show was to encourage apple growing for
export; different kinds were exhibited which are being tested for
their flavour and keeping properties, and demonstrations were given
in the best way of packing.
The soil round Clyde is white and sandy, and looks barren and
hopeless, but I was told that it is really so rich in plant foods,
that, given sufficient water, it will grow anything.
The railway from Clyde runs through a queer, wild country of
rock and scattered stones; where the only vegetation consists
in rare tufts of tussock grass and frequent dabs of pale green
moss, which make you think the ground must be turning mouldy from
lack of use. There is very little level ground and not much scope
for a railroad: the train simply forces its way along, creeping
through tunnels, and clinging hardily to the hillsides above steep
precipices yawning below.
People do come now and then to meet the train at some wayside
station, but there is little traffic in such a desolate land.
Later we ran through deep gorges, whose steep sides have patches
of dark bush above the rushing Taieri River. The gorges widen out
into the broad Taieri Plain, with its farms and woollen factory;
and towards evening the train steamed into Dunedin's smart railway
station.