We reached Invercargill at 5 p.m., and went for a walk about the town. The dusty streets stretching out in their dreary length to the flat country beyond, looked peculiarly bare and uninviting. And this impression was increased by the blinds of all the houses being halfway down, for the funeral of the late surveyor-general. The trees do not seem to have had time to grow up, and there is a crude, half-finished look about Invercargill. I must say in a less degree we noticed the same at Dunedin. Both these towns have the sparse, frugal look of the people who inhabit them. The Albion Hotel, where we stayed, was in the High Street, and very commercial. C. went in the evening with some members of the municipality to a volunteer drill. He looked in afterwards at the Athenæum Club opposite, which is well-arranged and organized, and is open for the use of ladies also.
Tuesday, October 21st.—We left Invercargill by the 6.45 train in the morning, to make an expedition to Lake Wakitipu (pronounced Wakitip). The train was very slow, though there are many stations along the line, where they only stop if there are passengers, a whole list in Bradshaw being "starred" for this purpose. Passing through one of the many sheep runs, a flock had got loose on the line, and we ran over an old ewe in spite of all precautions.
There was a notice put up at one of the stations, about the rabbit pest, which is nearly as bad here as in Australia, giving warning that after the 1st of November, poisoning by laying down phosphorescent corn was to begin. This method of poisoning was invented by a man who was being ruined by the devastation of rabbits on his property. The discovery came too late to save him, and he went bankrupt; but now he devotes all his time to trying to save others by disseminating the knowledge of his discovery.
Ranges of hills covered with snow, now succeeded to the flat plains. We were quite near the snow line, and I noticed how the hills, without sloping, descended sheer down on to the plain. We arrived at Kingston at the head of Lake Wakitipu, and found the steamer, the Mountaineer, moored at the wharf. There ensued a very long waiting, whilst the cargo was leisurely put on board.
It was two hours after the train had come in, before the last whistle sounded, to be quadrupled by the echo from the surrounding mountains; and we were off.
We had the most heavenly afternoon for our trip up the lake, with no wind, and the perfect stillness allowing the outline of the mountains to be faithfully mirrored and reflected back on the calm surface of the lake.
To the right there is a wild range of rocky terraces known as the "Devil's Staircase," and here the water was of an ordinary blue, but on the other, and under the lee of the dark mountains, it was of transparent marine green, very beautiful to behold.
Lake Wakitipu is sixty miles long, varying from three to four miles in width. The surface of the lake is 1000 feet above the level of the sea, but its bed is 300 feet below. The water is intensely cold, and any one drowned in this lake never comes to the surface again. The body is believed to become frozen before it reaches the bottom, so great is the depth and so icy the temperature.
The great peculiarity and remarkable beauty of Lake Wakitipu lies in the precipitous mountains that descend sheer into the lake in one straight line, varying from 3000 to 9000 feet. There are no undulating slopes or breaks in the range; no peeps of the country outside the mountains, which rise up as a fixed and impassable barrier, shutting us in whichever side we turn—making us unconsciously long for a glimpse of the outer world.