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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 4 (July 1, 1938.)

Over Myers Pass

Over Myers Pass.

This pass is an interlude. It is neither in the expansive mood of Hakataramea nor the tender richness of the Waihao, although here, still, the steep hillsides dance with the snowgrass, and the gully streams are glad with toe-toe. Along the road the thin groves of cabbage trees are the last relics of the cabbage tree forests of the Waihao, which, 40 years ago, contractors earned 3d. on each tree, uprooted. And only in lightness of spirit does one soar across the pass. The interlude is delayed by eight gates across the wide, well-built road.

On the lip of the bowl of the downs one overlooks Waihaorunga and then slips down into the Waihao. The downs flow about one, rippling out in wide circumferences, not cramping, but flowing from downs to hills and from hills to mountains. And the colour of it cannot be caught by the pen, nor its hospitable loveliness embraced by a sentence. One holds it only fleetingly and, inadequately —the curve of a ploughed down, plumcoloured as winter soil is in gentle light, and beside it the bright green of the autumn sown wheat, then all the tawny velvet shadows of arable gullies cleanly fenced. The dotted trees and warm plantations are melodious with the songs of the birds that come out of the bush.

The earth moves not only with the movement of the seasons, but with the rhythm of its own forms. But at Waihao Forks, the junction of the north and south branches of the Waihao River, these forms are cleft. The river flows out of the Waihao between ragged limestone cliffs which are like white scars in the green.