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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 5 (September 24, 1926)

Down the Travel-Trail

page 10

Down the Travel-Trail

We New Zealanders are a restless folk; we love to travel, and the thought of older lands, of great far cities, is a lure and a call to which our hearts long to respond. Perhaps it is part of our pioneer heritage, akin to the adventuring spirit that sent our fathers and mothers ten thousand miles across the seas to make their homes in a new, far land. Anyway, there it is, and there it was in my own heart when I waved a last goodbye to Auckland and set off down the travel-trail that leads by Pacific shores, and into the heart of the Golden West.

Three days later our ship steamed into Levuka, the little township on the shores of Ovalau. Here for the first time I saw the quaint sight of business-places, private houses, and even large trees, all firmly secured to the ground with heavy ropes and chains, so that the terrific hurricanes might not hurl them bodily into the sea. A flower-scented, lovely spot was Levuka, where native boys climbed the tall cocoanut palms and threw down nuts for us, beheading them afterwards with great knives, and offering us a cool, sweet drink, brimming to the top and delicious as the nectar of the gods after the heat of a walk under the tropic sun.

Big Trees—A Wayside Station

Big Trees—A Wayside Station

Then came long, hot days in the tropics, when not a breath of air stirred the oily surface of the ocean, blood-red sunsets and stars that flashed and shone like great silver flowers in the dark blue fields of the sky. After two weeks at sea, came a wonderful day in Honolulu, Paradise of the Pacific, where the natives threw about our shoulders ropes of frangipanni and hibiscus blooms and coaxed us to buy cats-eye necklets, postcards, fruit which we could not eat, hat-bands and girdles made of threaded seeds. Here I saw the most wonderful aquarium in the world, filled with fishes that were like an Arabian Nights dream come true. Some had faces like cats and dogs, others were grotesquely human; they floated about in trailing robes of pink and silver, scarlet and blue, green and gold, bits of splintered rainbow transformed into finny, flashing, living shapes.

A week later, our ship passed slowly down the fiord-like passage of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, through the Narrows, and into Vancouver Harbour. As we drew into the wharf, there floated out over the quiet water the sound of tolling bells, until I thought all Vancouver must be on its way to church……..And thus I came to the land where all the engines are fitted with bells.

For three days, the great C.P.R. and then the Southern Pacific train, bore me down the Pacific Coast, over the Canadian-American frontier at Sumas Junction, through Seattle, into Portland, “City of Roses,” and finally across the Sacramento River, where our train was divided into three sections and carried across the river on the largest ferry-boat in the world. So I came to journey's end in San Francisco, the beautiful light-hearted city that has risen triumphant from the dust and ashes of dire tragedy. Many a day I spent in Chinatown, the city of golden pagodas, little ladies in long silk trousers and sandalled feet, and Eastern restaurants (where one was served with chop-suey, beche-de-mer, birds' nest soup, fungus stew), a city very different page 11 from the old Chinatown—swept away in the Great Fire—where, nailed to a ruined wall, they found the skeleton of a woman crucified head downwards……

A Californian Camping Ground

A Californian Camping Ground

In the golden spring I came to know the Californian fields and forests, with their exquisite treasury of wild flowers. When spring comes to California, every field, every strip of wayside grass is ablaze with blue and golden lupins, poppies, and larkspurs blue as the sky, while in the great redwood forest, she spreads a carpet of wild violets, pansies, harebells, mission bells and trilliums. The wild lilac clothes the mountain sides in clouds of misty blue, and in the forest depths shines the glory of tiger-lilies and wild irises. Later on we gathered the ripe huckleberries, all warm and covered with rich purple bloom. For a whole month I camped in a tiny log cabin in a Santa Cruz redwood forest, washing for gold in the sands of the creek, tramping over the hills, swimming, riding the forest trails, and finding life very, very good……

Then at last I took my farewell glance at the city beyond the Golden Gates, bid good-bye to the bright North Star, and turned again to the long Ocean and the Land of the Southern Cross……But always in spring time my thoughts go back to the Golden West, its gracious beauty, its bright skies, and the scented glory of its springtime flowers.