AMONG THE SOUTHERN ALPS
My first experience of tourist travelling in New Zealand was a
trip to the Southern Alps, with a stay among the mountains of only
six days. It was a very short visit, but long enough for something
of the fascination of the mountains to take hold of me and bring
me back later for several months. From Christchurch the traveller
sees, a hundred miles away, on the western side of the Canterbury
Plain, the whole range of the Southern Alps, a wonderful rampart of
snowy peaks; and it was with eager curiosity that I set out on the
journey thither.
Not many years ago the mountains were almost inaccessible and it
was necessary to ride the greater part of the way. Now a railway
winds up among the southern foothills, and during seven months
of the year an excellent service of motor cars runs regularly
three days a week between Fairlie, the railroad terminus, and
the mountain hostel, ninety-six miles further. Fairlie is a small
township, with two hotels, Post Office, a bank and a few shops in
its main street. Round about the township are grassy hills with
many "cabbage trees," their bare brown stems surrounded by one or
more tufts of narrow green streamers, which wave lightly in the
breeze: the cabbage tree is a species of lily, and in the early
summer has long panicles crowded with creamy white blossoms among
the green leaves. It grows on hill, plain or swamp, and always on
good soil.
Tourists spend the night at Fairlie, and start in the car next
morning punctually at eight o'clock.
This district has all been taken up by settlers for farms and sheep
runs. We drove past "paddocks," as all fields are called in New
Zealand, white with English ox-eye daisies or dazzlingly yellow
with great bushes of broom, and saw homesteads sheltered by clumps
of oaks, poplars, willows or pines.
The road climbs steadily uphill to the top of Burke's Pass, more
than two thousand feet above sea level, and for the rest of the
way goes through "tussock" country, a land of hill and plain
covered as far as eye could see with tufts of brown grass. On a
rainy day such a landscape, stretching on interminably in one
uniform tint of brown has a very desolate appearance, but when the
sun shines the brown hills gleam yellow in the distance and develop
beautiful purple shadows in their hollows, and big white clouds
floating above them make purple shadows too: then, beyond the
rounded hills stand blue mountains, rugged and mysterious, their
summits streaked with snow. In the heart of the hills you come
unexpectedly upon a lovely blue-green lake, six miles long, fed by
glacier streams, a blue mountain torrent rushing out of it. Thirty
miles further on we reached yet another lake--Lake Pukaki--twice
the size of the first, and green rather than blue. Behind this
lake, though still forty miles away, we saw Mount Cook, half hidden
by clouds. Mount Cook, or as the Maoris called it, "Aorangi, the
Sky Piercer," is 12,349 feet in height, the Monarch of the Southern
Alps, and the loftiest mountain in New Zealand. The Maoris gave
names to many of the high peaks in both islands, but knew them only
from afar; they regarded them with reverent awe and had no wish to
invade their solitudes. The honour of being the first to reach the
summit of Mount Cook rests with three New Zealanders, who climbed
it successfully on Christmas Day, 1894.
[Illustration: ROAD BETWEEN FAIRLIE AND THE HERMITAGE. _To face page 66._]
The tussock country is devoted to sheep runs, varying in size from
one thousand to twenty thousand acres; the runs used to be as large
as sixty thousand acres, but all the larger runs have now been
split up by Government with a view to closer settlement. Merinos
and crossbreds thrive very well, but as from three to five acres
are needed to support one sheep, the runs need to be a fair size.
Between the tufts of tussock grow some finer grasses, and English
white clover and sorrel are gradually spreading; the tussock grass
is often burnt in patches, so that the sheep may have the fresh
shoots which spring up from its roots. Wire fences divide the
runs, and at intervals are posted collie dogs, with a barrel for
kennel, to keep a watchful eye on their masters' sheep; houses are
very rare, ten miles or more apart, the older ones surrounded by
flourishing trees.
The road is kept in repair by men who go about with carts and long
shovels and collect stones from the bank or any convenient pit by
the roadside. There are stones everywhere, large and small, carried
down from the mountains in the far-away days when all the valleys
were filled with enormous glaciers. The road-menders are paid nine
shillings a day, wet or fine; in wet weather they do no work, but
as they have no fixed homes and sleep where they can, it is not a
life to be envied. Every few miles along the road are posts with
hooks--generally old horseshoes--and on the hooks, as the car
went by, the driver hung the mail bags, and as a rule, a man on
horseback came trotting up to fetch them. The telephone wire runs
close to the road the whole way, and the tourist cars are provided
with spare wires, which can be attached in case of need.
On leaving Lake Pukaki, the road skirts the hillside above a valley
some four miles wide, where on the right the Tasman River flows
through a level swamp. In front, ever growing nearer, are the High
Alps, range behind range, at first green or brown, then grey and
purple, with glaciers gleaming whitely among the shadows.
Our destination, in December, 1912, was the Old Hermitage, and this
we safely reached punctually at 5 p.m.
The Old Hermitage was a small hotel managed by the New Zealand
Government Tourist Department. It was a comfortable, one-storied
building, made of "cob"--a mixture of clay and grass--boarded
inside, and with an outer casing made of corrugated iron. It was
the first house built in New Zealand for the accommodation of
climbers and has been a delight to many visitors; during the last
few years it has proved far too small, and in 1912 a big hotel was
being built on a better site, a mile away from the old one.
The old house stands in a hollow at the very foot of the mountains,
with the verandah facing Sefton's snowy peak. On either side of
it are other mountains cleft by deep gullies, and to the sides of
gullies and mountains cling hardy Alpine shrubs, while above the
vegetation come shingle slopes and naked brown rock, and higher
still, at about 5,000 feet, the unmelting snow.
Most of the tourists who stop at the Hermitage for longer than
one night wish to go for some excursion up one of the glaciers or
mountains. The particular expedition that newcomers generally take
is one to the Hooker Glacier with a night spent in an Alpine hut.
At the Hermitage everything is provided by Government--guides,
horses, alpenstocks or ice-axes, puttees, and even climbing boots.
The Government boots are well made and kept in many sizes for hire,
but the more comfortable plan is to take strong boots and have
nails put in them.
The head guide decided that I, like other "new chums," should go
with a party of ladies to the Hooker, so off we set, carrying
alpenstocks, and feeling very important; the head guide himself
came with us, taking in his rucksack any clothes we needed as
well as food. Our road lay up the valley, over ancient moraines
covered with scanty tussock grass, low-growing brooms, heaths and
dainty Alpine flowers. The New Zealand Alpine flowers are usually
white--helichrysums, daisies or heaths; though sometimes the
daisies are yellow, and there are mauve campanulas, and the white
violets have streaks of mauve. To-day we saw, growing in profusion,
clumps of yellow spear-grass, its leaves half an inch wide with
points like needles, and bearing long spikes of dull yellow
flowers--a plant known as "Spaniards" and very handsome, but best
admired at a respectful distance.
All the centre of this valley is filled with ice many feet thick,
piled high with boulders large and small, and powdered over
everywhere with grey dust; the Mueller Glacier which comes down
from Mount Sefton brings with it an amazing amount of débris,
and its terminal face is hardly visible; all is a weird scene of
unrelieved desolation--one vast rubbish heap--and only on looking
very closely where a glint of white or green shows through the
silt, can you feel assured that the foundation of it is ice and
not solid rock. We crossed the Hooker River by two suspension
bridges--wooden planks hung on chains, which sway alarmingly in
the wind, while the torrent brawls noisily many feet below, and
walked along a narrow track up the Hooker Valley.
Here we found ourselves among the Mount Cook lilies in full flower,
by the river and up the hill sides, and at our feet in sheets
of white among the stones--a perfect natural rock-garden. These
so-called lilies are a species of ranunculus (Ranunculus Lyallii),
they have smooth green stalks two feet high, and the flowers are
in clusters, five to nine flowers on each stem, the individual
flowers two inches across, pure white petals round bright yellow
centres; the leaves stand below the flower heads, every leafstalk
bearing a green cup--it is a large and perfect cup, and can be
used to drink from, and after rain you find water waiting for the
thirsty traveller. Other Alpine plants were here too--big white
daisies with fleshy green leaves, yellow mountain celandines, many
small-leaved native shrubs, and intruding patches of red English
sorrel. Under a huge boulder, surrounded by lilies, we had our
lunch of sandwiches and tea, and it was here that I first learnt
the excellence of tea made in a "billy." The billy is a tin pail,
large or small, and takes the place of both kettle and teapot, as
when the water boils tea is sprinkled into it, the lid is left on
for a few minutes and the tea is poured straight from the billy
into the cups.
[Illustration: MOUNT COOK LILIES. _To face page 72._]
After a rough scramble among stones and over noisy streams hurrying
to join the glacier below, early in the afternoon we reached
the Hooker Hut, set in a level space against the mountain side.
In front of the hut are the peaks of the Mount Cook Range--bare
brown rock below, but always snow on their summits. At the foot
of a steep cliff flows the Hooker Glacier, and at the head of the
glacier towers Mount Cook, a mighty, snow-clad giant. The hut
itself is, like most of the New Zealand Alpine huts, a serviceable
building of corrugated iron on a framework of wood, lined with
thick linoleum. This one is divided into two rooms with six bunks
in each; one room for the ladies' bedroom, and the other to serve
as living room and men's bedroom. The living room has a table, two
large chests, benches and a kerosene oil-stove.
The only living creatures we saw by the hut were the mountain
parrots--"keas" as they are called in imitation of their cry which
often resembles the word "ke-a" shrieked slowly and harshly; they
have many calls and sometimes remind one of a whining puppy,
sometimes of a crying baby, and on a wet day a kea will sit on a
rock and croak until the dismal monotony of his cry compels you
to speak severely and shy stones at him. They have black, curved
parrot beaks and sage-green plumage, and when they fly, disclose
pretty red backs, and a patch of red feathers on either wing. They
are most friendly, inquisitive birds, and came up to the door of
the hut and took the greatest interest in our doings.
Our guide gave us a good dinner of hot soup, cold mutton, boiled
tomatoes, canned apricots and tea. Soon after dinner we turned in.
The bunks have wooden sides with strong canvas nailed across. On
the canvas is laid a soft down mattress, and with the addition of
a pillow and many grey blankets you have a very comfortable bed.
Keas seem to need very little sleep; they roosted on the roof of
the hut, and apparently overbalanced when asleep and went slipping
down the iron over our heads. Finally they gave it up, and began
calling to one another long before it was light. The only other
sounds were of occasional avalanches slipping down the mountain
sides. We got up at 5 a.m., and by 7 o'clock started for the
glacier, along a very rough track over the moraine, then across
patches of dirty snow. At last we were on the glacier and walked
over the snow a couple of miles towards Mount Cook, getting good
distant views of mountains and glaciers. So early in the season the
glacier is covered with last winter's snow, only here and there are
there crevasses wide and deep enough to show the beautiful green
ice tints. Our feet sank into the snow at every step; and after a
luncheon of sardine sandwiches and iced pineapple, which we ate
sitting on our alpenstocks in the middle of the glacier, we were
glad to turn and regain the track.
When next I stayed at the Hermitage, fifteen months later, the new
hotel had just been opened, and was crowded with tourists coming
and going. The time was early autumn and the weather perfect, with
cold nights and days of glorious sunshine, and I was able to see
far more of the mountains than had been possible before.
On the river flats, except for white gentians and mauve or white
campanulas, most of the flowers were over; but in their place
glowed berries of red, yellow, white, blue or black; and near the
snow line was the New Zealand edelweiss, with quaint grey flower
and leaf. After the hot summer the glaciers were very much broken,
with the surface snow melted and the ice foundation traversed by
many crevasses of ten to a hundred feet; and walking on the narrow
ice ridges between the crevasses needed a steady head and well
nailed boots.
The largest glacier in New Zealand is the Tasman Glacier, which
is eighteen miles long, and at its widest two and a half miles
across. It flows parallel with the main Divide of the Alps,
receiving several tributary glaciers in its course, until it ends
abruptly in a high wall of stones and dirty grey ice, five miles
from the Hermitage. To reach the head of the glacier is a two
days' expedition. On the first day you ride for fourteen miles on
horseback along a narrow track, which for part of the way is a mere
scratch on the side of the mountain high above the glacier bed.
After one night in a hut you then, if the weather is fine, go on
the next day for a ten mile tramp over the solid ice.
Right at the head of the Tasman, on a little plateau two or three
hundred feet above the glacier, has been built a narrow stone
platform on which stands a tiny hut. It is almost on the snow line,
and the only vegetation is the wiry snow grass and a few intrepid
gentians and lilies, which find shelter against great boulders. No
keas venture so high, only a stray gull had flown up from the river
valleys.
Standing outside the hut I saw, under perfect conditions, one of
the grandest mountain views to be found in New Zealand or any other
country. Facing me was a mighty wall of mountains--all the highest
peaks of the Southern Alps, giants of nine to twelve thousand feet,
with snowy summits and great snowfields and buttresses of naked
rock. On the extreme right, a dome of pure white snow, over nine
thousand feet high; and, encircling its base, the beginning of the
Tasman glacier, a great expanse of snow ever feeding the great
ice river, whose course could be seen for twelve miles, sweeping
majestically underneath the mountains, until, beyond Mount Cook,
it was hidden by a spur of the range on which I stood. Mount Cook
fitly dominated the scene, a thousand feet higher than any other
mountain, with its summit a long toothed ridge of snow-clad peaks.
I watched while the sun set and all the glacier lay in shadow: soon
the snows of the lower slopes of the mountains became a cold, dead
white, while their summits flushed with deep rose-colour against
pure blue sky.