Mid-Canterbury's Hinterland

(By R. A. Bullock .)

(Photo. I. Tucker.)
Lake Heron, South Island, N.Z.

Behind the frontal ranges of the Southern Alps, where the Ashburton River begins its meanderings across the plains of mid-Canterbury to the sea, lie a number of small lakes, surrounded by hills, gaunt and barren in the summer and snowclad in winter, and small tussocky plains devoid of animal life, save for a few solitary sheep and rabbits.

Let us take a journey into this lakeland, the waters of which are the habitation of the brown and rainbow trout and the sanctuaries of the black swan and the Grey and Paradise duck.

Flat, well-cultivated farm lands, which form the precincts of the Ashburton district, are passed through in an easy hour's journey by rail or motor from Ashburton to Mt. Somers, the portal to our hill country. The journey gives a glimpse of the majestic grandeur of the Alps, which stretch to right and left across the vision. Foothills which, from further back on the plains, appeared mere dwarfs now loom almost overhead like veritable giants, while the white magnificence of the main ranges can be discerned by the snow-capped peaks silhouetted against the north-western sky.

We enter the Ashburton George, and before we realise it, are into undulating country. Our road takes us past the Mt. Somers limestone and coal mines and the rich silica country. Clent Hills, one of Canterbury's well-known early sheepruns, and now part of the Mt. Possession run, is reached. Almost opposite on the other side of the gorge, Mt. Possession towers like a sentinel guarding the great beyond. Blowing Point bridge and the snow-fed south branch of the Ashburton River are crossed, and we are greeted by Hakatere, that widely-known sheep station, so aptly described by Samuel Butler in his book “Erewhon,” and now also part of the Mt. Possession run.

Leaving Hakatere behind, we soon come to where two roads converge to form our highway. Which will we take? After a short deliberation we decide to take the road to the right, and seem to have travelled only a short distance when we espy, nestled together like two huge eyes, the smallest of the lakes—Lakes Trip and Howard, or better known to trampers and fishermen as the Maori lakes. Eight miles further on, and exactly forty-seven miles by road from Ashburton, we come upon Lake Heron, the largest of the lakes, which spreads itself lazily across the valley.

If an arduous tramp of several miles over high hilly country is to be avoided we will have to retrace our steps if we wish to visit the remainder of the lakes, and view, perhaps, a more beautiful part of the country. We go back to where the roads meet and take the left turning. In a very few minutes we catch a glimpse of Lake Emma, sitting back snugly from the road. Continuing for some miles we at last reach the remaining lakes of this lakeland. They are Lake Clearwater, four miles in length, the second largest of the chain, and Lake Camp, about a mile in length. Both are noted, the former, in winter, as an ice-skating and ski-ing rendezvous, and in summer as a splendid trout-fishing resort, the latter for its strikingly beautiful stretch of water

(Photo. E. Wilson.)
The old Hakatere sheep station, South Island, N.Z., immortalised by Samuel Butler, in “Erewhon.”

where large rainbow trout play.

Before turning our backs upon these tarns on our return journey to the plains, let us take one peep at the grand awfulness of the main divide between east and west. Our road takes us round the gently sloping side of Mt. Harper and into what is known as the Potts cutting.

At our very feet three small ranges of lesser peaks, with their bushy sides and white feathery caps, seem to rear themselves into the air and throw themselves out at various angles until they become lost in the great white range in the distance. Deep down at the bottom of rocky gorges, the Havelock and Clyde Rivers, upper tributaries of the Rangitata and the Potts River, a large upper stream of the Rakaia, can be seen wending their silvery ways from their sources in the big Two Thumb Range. The former two converge in a mighty swirl almost at the foot of Mt. Harper, while the Potts rushes away to the right to join the deep flowing Rangitata.

Looking to the west, one sees the Rangitata Gorge overlooking the famous Mesopotamia sheep station, and the tall Black Mountain, so well known to musterers. To the north the gaze is arrested by Mt. Potts, standing with noble head adorned with a canopy of snow, and Mt. Arrowsmith posing like a monarch in full array. The beauty of the scene is intensified by the background of the great white Alps.