With Axe and Rope in the New Zealand Alps

by George Edward Mannering

THE SURFACE OF A GLACIER

[Wheeler & Son, Photo.

A survey from the cliffs, sixty feet above the stream, disclosed a tongue or groyn of rocks running out into the stream in an oblique direction from the Otago side, and shooting the main body of the current on to the rocks opposite. A long stretch of straight water followed, but the whole stream was confined in rocky banks so close together that one might throw a biscuit across, and the pace of the current was something terrific. For half an hour we considered the situation, finally determining to shoot the rapid. There was really only about eight or ten feet of safe water close to the point of the groyn of rocks, and this was right in the body of the current. On either hand were eddies and whirlpools of the most formidable character, which, in the event of our making a bad shot, might swirl us among the rocks on one side or the other, and had such been the case we trembled to think what would have been our fate. However, at it we went, Dixon as usual leading, with a head as cool as a cucumber, and I following, like a spaniel after his master. One wild rush, a few strokes of the paddle, a mad tossing about in a sheet of crested foam, half-a-dozen bucketfuls of water on board, and we were through, breathing again as we tore down the hurrying, but straight and safe, current below.

Though we met with no greater obstacles to canoeing than this rapid in the gorge, such performances were several times repeated, and we had to land now and again to survey the course ahead.

To describe the mad plunging of the river through the gorge is not an easy matter. Here and there, perhaps, a long even stretch is met with, but for the most part the river makes a succession of bends bounded by rocky cliffs on either hand, now and then masses of rock crop up through the water, against which the stream is banked up by the force of its mad career to a height of ten or twelve feet; immediately under the sides of the rock there are vicious-looking heavings, eddies, and whirlpools, which, if one chances to get into them, twist the boat about like a feather when blown upon the water’s surface. A black swan and three cygnets kept ahead of us for the last six miles of the gorge, but as we entered with relieved feelings upon the more open country, they eluded our further pursuit in a backwater. Another few miles and we reached our destination for the night—Mr. W. G. Rutherfurd’s station, Rugged Ridges—where a warm and hospitable welcome made us feel that once more we were in the regions of civilisation.

Leaving next morning at 4.30, we gave ourselves eleven hours to catch the train for Christchurch, at Waitaki, a distance by water of sixty miles. Four hours saw us in Duntroon (thirty miles), where we astonished the natives in disgracefully tattered boating attire, and indulged in that from which we had long been estranged—‘a long shandy’—and by 9.15 we were off again at eight miles an hour, shooting down the most beautifully safe and rippling rapids, scaring ducks, plover, gull, stilt, swan, and all manner of wild fowl; now and then startling a mob of horses or cattle from their peaceful browsing, or astonishing some slow-going shepherd or cowboy as they stared open-mouthed at such an uncommon sight as two madmen in cockle-shells of canoes rushing down their boatless river, until we put the final touch to the whole enterprise by carrying our boats up to the station at Waitaki South (to the amazement of four railway navvies), at 1 p.m., having averaged eight miles an hour for sixty miles, allowing for one hour stoppages.

The distances by water, allowing for sinuosities in the course of the rivers from Aorangi to the sea, may be roughly summarised as follows:—From the end of the Mount Cook Range to Pukaki Ferry, thirty-four miles; from the Ferry to Rugged Ridges, thirty-eight miles; and from thence to the railway bridge near the sea at Waitaki, sixty miles; a total distance of 132 miles.

If it were not for the Pukaki Rapids the trip might be comfortably accomplished in three days, and at a stretch could be done in two; but the way to enjoy it would be to travel in a good staunch canoe, with watertight compartments and such accessories as the west coast canoeists are in the habit of using, and spend a week over the journey.