1941 March
Family Letter from LJT No 8
The Hermitage Hotel
Mount Cook. N.Z.
March 2nd 1941
My Dears,
Its only three days since I wrote a short letter to you all, and quite probably you will get this by the same mail. Our luck with the weather held, and we had two perfect cloudless days for our trip to the Malte Brun Hut up the Tasman Glacier, and back. Today, after five and a half hours of fairly strenuous walking and climbing on Friday, and five hours coming down yesterday, we feel like sitting still a bit to-day, and keeping tomorrow free for a day out in the mountains if the weather lasts. We shall have to pack up again on Tuesday, for we have to leave here early on Wednesday morning. I am going back now to try to give you some impression of our journey across the mountain range. We decided to go South about thirty miles by road from Waiho, and cross by what is known as the Copeland track and pass. It is longer, but not quite so strenuous as the crossing by Grahams Saddle, for which one goes straight up the Franz Joseph Glacier to Almer Hut the first day, and on the next day one has to do something like ten hours over snow fields, across the saddle and down more snow fields and glacier to another hut. The third day is down the Tasman Glacier, so the three days are spent almost entirely on ice and snow, which we find a little tireing. By the Copeland track one starts up a wonderful valley by a bush track. The first day is a fifteen mile walk, but I think only a rise of about a thousand feet. Many people hire horses and ride this bit to what are know as Welcome Flats, and then walk on another six miles or so with a pretty steep climb to the Douglas Rock Hut. We preferred to walk to Welcome Flats, stay a night in the hut there, do the very short day to Douglas Rock the next morning, and so be fresh for the long day over the Pass to this place. The route passes from heavy bush, with the track above a fine river, to scrub bush above Douglas Rock, melting into true Alpine, of small plants, grass, tiny bushes and lots of rock, and so into a great basin of vast rock slides, and screes, with little vegetation, and finally on to some small snow fields (small only at this time of year) and a final steep rock climb to the summit. On the other side there is a descent down a steep snow field on to a rocky ridge, which falls steeply down to the Hooker Valley, down which there is a pretty good track to this place, so one gets plenty of variety on the trip. When we were planning the arrangements Harry Ayres asked if we would mind if his wife came with us. Kathleen is the second cook at the Glacier Hotel. She is also a good mountaineer, as are quite a number of the staff there, and she is a very nice girl. We said we should be very pleased to have her with us. We breakfasted early on Saturday Feb 22nd, and packed into the car with our rucksacks and ice axes ready to leave by about 7 45. (handwritten in margin) During the night my mattress slipped off the bedstead and I cam down flop. No sleep afterwards! LJT The Grahams and their various friends and relations all gathered and gave us a tremendous send-off. It was a perfect morning, and the drive past the Fox Glacier and on past a farm that is always known as “Scotts’” where many of the early climbers and surveyors were befriended in the early days, was beautiful. For the first fifteen miles it winds steeply up and down over spurs of the mountains, all the time through wonderful forest and ferns of every size from tiny mites not much bigger than mosses to tree ferns twenty or thirty feet high. Beyond the Fox Glacier, the road, not long constructed straightens out, and one gets fine views of some of the big snow peaks. Four miles beyond Scott’s a maori boy with a pack horse was waiting for us, for food for us all for three days was a big burden for Harry to carry (that was to say if we wanted to eat well) and we thought it was worth the little extra extravagance to get our own rucksacks carried as far as we could. (handwritten in margin) Plus a preserve in case the weather held us up. At our point of departure from the car, there was a roadmens camp, of P.W.D. employees engaged on building a bridge. One funny old boy with a stubble of grey beard on his chin, brought a stool and a chair, most ingeniously made of packing cases and bits of canvas, out of his shack, and invited us to sit down, while the bits of baggage were being fastened on to the horse. Harry kept his rucksack, with lunch, and precious things such as a box of eggs, and a bottle of fresh cream, which might have been broken or damaged on the horse. The maori boy had a second horse to ride, and was instructed to go to the Welcome Flat Hut, and deposit our goods there, not waiting for us, as he wanted to get back to Scott’s that evening. It was about ten o’clock by the time we started, and we had a most delightful day. The valley we were working up is exquisite, with high rocky ranges on either side, a brawling mountain river of the beautiful cloudy blue-green that is taken on by glacier water, flowing down it, and for us, shade almost the whole way and yet the forest was not so thick that we could not see the mountains and the river, and the splendid water-falls that leap down the mountains so plentifully that people have scarcely bothered to name them. New Zealand is, like Sikkim, a great land for water-falls. We were able to drink from the mountain streams (called “creeks” in this country) as often as we wanted. Harry delighted the company at one place, by getting below a place where water was flowing over a rock, thinking he would be able to drink more conveniently, but with the sad result that the water fall flowed neatly down into the unbuttoned front of his shirt! The views of the mountains kept on changing, and different snow tops came into view. I have read so many of the books about the New Zealand mountains, now, that the different peaks hold an interest beyond their sheer beauty. We lunched luxuriously at a splashing creek, and reached Welcome flat about three o’clock, as far as I remember. We had met the horses some time before on their downward journey. The hut was in good condition, and has a living room and two bedrooms, so we were comfortable, and not greatly worried by the sand-flies and mosquitoes, which are said to make life a torture and sleep impossible at some seasons of the year, in this otherwise enchanting spot. We had taken mosquito coils, and citronella oil, and took the precaution to shut the doors and windows before dusk, and we were not bothered at all. The valley widens out into quite a sizable little plain, partly covered with forest, and partly with grass, and has a very engaging feature in a boiling spring of mineral water, which flows down into a big pool, where it becomes cool enough to bathe in. It is lovely to have a hot bath after a long day’s walk. The water has some sulphur in it I think, and is lovely and soft. What with bathing, and looking at the mountains, and making our beds, the time soon slipped away, till six o’clock, when Harry and Kathleen gave us an excellent meal, having argued a good deal about which was the more competent cooker of chops in a camp oven! Since we had not got to make a specially early start, we sat talking till about ten o’clock, which is late hours for a mountain hut. Oh! I forgot to mention that a little while before we got to Welcome Flat, we saw a bush-hen or Weka, and her big chick. We watched them for some time. The mother had a huge worm with which she wished to feed the young one, but it wriggled so much she seemed to have some trouble in managing it. A little further on we saw another weka. I don’t know whether it was the cock. These birds are getting rare now, for the weasels and ferretts introduced to N.Z. to keep down the rabbit pest, have gone wild, increased enormously, and wraught havoc with N.Z’s birds, many of which dont fly, and since they had no natural enemies, have no way of protecting themselves. In appearance they are about the size of a good-sized domestic hen, but more the shape of a guinea-fowl, with that curious sort of cut off appearance about the tail. In colour they are a ruddy brown. They did not seem to be frightened of us, as long as we kept still and quiet, and regarded us with rather curious eyes.
The following morning we took things very easily, washed in the hot spring. (Herbert took up his shaving things, and shaved at the boiling water at the source) and started on our short journey about ten o’clock. A second big flat a bit higher up than the hut, and more open, tempted us to sit down and get out the map, the better to study the mountains, especially Mt Sefton rising up with terrific grandure as the south wall of the valley. Here, at the Hermitage, we are just on the other side of it. Harry was pointing out the route by which it is now usually climbed. It was a steep climb beyond this Flat, and we got pretty hot, although we were shaded by the forest all the way. Harry told us of various adventures he has had in this valley, especially of one time when he and two others left the Douglas Hut in spite of bad weather, for they had exhausted their food, only to find that it was impossible to cross the mountain torrent over which we were at that moment picking our way from rock to rock with no difficulty. There was nothing for it but to return to the Douglas Hut, but another torrent just below the hut had risen during their absence, and they could not get across it. Finally they had to work about two miles up the stream through the bush - - a fearful business, for it is thick and tangled in a way that English woods of the densest give you no idea of) - - till they got to a place where a snow avalanche had come down and made a temporary bridge across the stream. By this they crossed, and then had to work back through the bush to the track, and so at last to the Hut and a diet of tea with no milk or sugar, and, I understand, nothing to eat. Luckily these mountain torrents go down as quickly as they come up, so the party were able to get down the next day. Meantime we were enjoying perfect weather, a cloudless blue sky, of a blue more intense than I have ever seen elsewhere, and infinite leisure, begotten of ample time to accomplish a short journey. The Douglas Rock Hut gets its name from one of the early Surveyors, Douglas, who was the first man to push up this valley, and reported that a big overhanging rock gave excellent shelter as a bivouac. This rock was constantly used as a camping place till a few years ago when the hut was built. The hut stands in thick bush, but one can get good views of the mountains above the trees. Sefton seems to tower up right above and looked most impressive, especially when wisps of white mist swept across its face in the evening, and made it look higher than ever. While Kathleen and Harry were preparing the lunch, we slipped back to a little torrent carrying dry clothes and our towels, and had a wash in the cold sparkling water. Herbert went underneath a miniature fall and gave a yell of surprise when he found how cold the water was. After lunch Harry and his wife went off to cut a fresh supply of firewood for the hut, and I sat on a log outside the door and darned Herbert’s stockings, as well as reinforcing the heels of my own. There is a potentilla (or something closely akin) in seed just now. It is called biddy-bid and is a regular little devil. It sticks its seeds into socks and stockings and any fabric it can reach, so Herbert gathered the family socks and stockings (we wore stockings and then socks rolled down over our boots as well ) and spent most of the afternoon getting the biddy-bids out of them. These wretched things cause an enormous loss to the farmer, for they ruin much of the wool on the sheep.
We were careful to be early to bed on Sunday night, for we were to get up at three and leave at four o’clock. I heard the alarm go off, and no sound of Harry stirring, so at last I got up and called to him. He said it was only the second time in all his career as a guide that he has slept through the alarm. I think the reason was that he had been having a bad time with his teeth all the previous week, and had had a lot of dope when the two stumps were extracted. However, as there was a thick white mist, almost amounting to thin rain over everything, it did not much matter, as Harry wanted to get a better idea of what the weather was going to do before we started. He decided that it was good enough, and we got away a little before half-past five, by the light of a candle lantern. We had to wear our light waterproofs, because the bush was wringing wet. We only had about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour through tree forest, and as we emerged from it, there was light enough for us to travel by. Ahead of us, somewhere over the rocky crest where our route lay, the crescent of the dying moon was still bright and lovely. The mists broke up and rolled away to sit lower down in the valleys where we saw them later in the day. It was nice to be in more open country. We climbed steadily up amongst rocks, and over grass and all sorts of plants, now mostly in seed. Everywhere there were small types of veronica bushes, and for a while great quantities of the mountain ribbon-wood, with leaves rather like syringes, and flowers like a white cherry. When we had been going for perhaps an hour, Harry who was in front with me next behind, suddenly stopped, and pointed. About twenty yards in front of him a chamois got up and bounded up the hill-side, stopping when he had got to a little distance to gaze at us. It made a curious sort of whistling noise, which Harry, who has done quite a lot of deer shooting, copied well so that the creature was definitely interested and puzzled. We had far to go and could not spend too much time watching the animals, so on we went and during the next hour or so, we saw several more chamoix. Its interesting to see them making their ways up and down the mountain sides. There were lots of keas or mountain parrotts, which I have described to you before, circling round us, and screaching out to know what on earth we were doing up in those wild parts. I made no notes of times, but at a guess I should think we spent about a couple of hours working up this high Alpine valley, getting higher and higher above the river on our left. Presently we came to the foot of a very steep grassy ascent, and Harry said “Now the hard work begins”. It was fine, and we were out of the shrub bush, so we took off our rain coats, and packed them into our rucksacks, before starting on the zigzags up the cliff-like hillside. I was glad to find myself considerably less breathless than I had been on the two previous climbs, though I had to stop at intervals, to get a fresh supply of breath. At last the grade leveled out considerably, and Harry proposed that when we reached a great flat-topped rock that we had seen ahead, we should change our socks and stockings, for our feet were soaked. I think we had gone in over the tops of our boots crossing a stream soon after we left the hut, and the drenching vegetation had carried on the good work. It was nice to get on dry socks - We could wring the water out of those we had on, and fastened them outside our packs, so that they would dry in the sun. Soon after this we were off the grass, and into a strange semicircular cup near the summits of the lower mountains. There was little vegetation, but the whole landscape was a mass of stone and rock slips and slides, which I suppose have been coming off the mountains for thousands upon thousands of years. On we went over and across this stoney waste, stopping to have a drink at the last stream wriggling down amongst the stones. About this time the suns rays reached us. Previously we had been in the shadow of the mountains on the eastern side. I have no idea how long we were on the rocky stuff before we came to a small snow field, which was at a gentle slope, with the snow in easy condition to walk on. Now we could see the line of the pass in front of us, but the stiffest bit was yet to come. We had to get up a steep rock slide for five or six hundred feet. Luckily many of the rocks were a good size and did not give under ones feet as so many of the N.Z. rock slides do, though one had to be careful, for by no means all were safe to put ones weight on. I crept slowly up, pausing now and again for breath, but eventually reaching the top of the slide with none of the distress of breathlessness and thirst which I experienced previously. Another smallish snow field at an easy gradient, a rock rib to cross, another larger snow field at a fairly steep slope, and we were at the foot of the summit rocks. A little to our right the snow field sloped up to what looks an easy col, the obvious pass, one would think, but Harry says many is the person who has climbed to it only to find themselves looking down an unclimbable precipice, and had to work their way back, and scramble up to the jagged rock teeth at the top of a slightly sloping rock wall, some hundred feet high, at a very rough guess. Actually this was not difficult to get up, for there were good hand and foot-holds on nice firm rock, and we soon got up to a niche between two rock teeth, and looked over into the East. Close in front of us was mount Cook, and lots of other snow covered peaks. Below us a steep snow field dropped away, and far below we could se the Hooker Valley into which we had to descend, and still further off the red roofs of the Hermitage. The snow field on the eastern face had melted away from the rocks, and we were able to scramble down a sort of gully, out of the wind, and find rather narrow sitting accomodation on the warm rock, rather than stepping over on to the snow as Harry preferred to do, before sitting down for a rest and lunch. We had squashed fly biscuits, raisins, tomatoes, and tinned pears, and very good they all tasted. It was splendid to see Mount Cook so close, and thrilling to see so many of the peaks we had only seen as small distant spikes or knobs from the top of Mt Moltke, now imposing great mountain. Looking down from the western side back into the Copeland Valley, and beyond, one could see the mornings mist lying there still, but with us the day was brilliant and cloudless. The most tricky part of the whole business was now to come. We had to get down about six or eight hundred feet of steep snow field, and the old summer snow after one of the hottest and dryest seasons known, was almost as hard as ice, and badly crevassed. Harry laid out his alpine rope, along the fairly level top, and putting Kathleen in front to cut steps, he tied Herbert on next, then me, and lastly himself. He put on crampons, with which he could get a good footing in the hard snow, so that he could act as anchor if anyone slipped. It was a hundred foot rope, so we each had a fair slack to keep coiled in one hand while we used our ice-axes with the other. Kath had to cut steps most of the way, and very well she did it. We had to take a zig-zag course, avoiding the crevasses, which were pretty deep. In one or two places we were able to kick footholds with our heels, and Herbert was just saying to Kath that he thought we could do so, when he slipped. I tried to hold him to get a belay of rope round my axe, which was luckily pretty firmly spiked into the snow, but my feet went from under me in a flash. Harry had me firm on the rope though, and I also had a good grip on the axe, as had Herbert, so all was well, and we were able to regain our feet, and go on without any difficulty. So much step cutting was a slow business, and I think we must have been an hour getting down that snow field, which in normal snow conditions or with crampons, could I suppose be negotiated in a quarter of an hour. It was rather a relief to get on to the rock ridge we were making for, and Kath must have been glad to reach it too, for step-cutting is hard work. We had a few minutes rest, eat some chocolate and sucked a lemon, and then started down the rock. If I had been shown it in cold blood, and asked to go up or down it, I rather fancy I should have said “No Thanks”, but there was not the slightest shadow in either Harry or Kath’s minds that it was anything but the simplest scramble, that one just had to take it in the same spirit. And anyhow it had to be done, for we could not stay on top, and certainly did not want to go back. The rope had been taken off, by the way, for which I was thankful, for I know I should have been a fool at managing it. Its wonderful how one forgets about the sheer drops below when one is concentrated on finding foot and hand holds, and I really did not mind the descent when it came to the point. We had one or two short slides down shingle slopes, which are rather nice when you get used to them, and finished up with a good long one to the level of the Hooker Hut, which we had seen very small and far away for a long time. The descent from the end of the snow to the hut took us about two hours. Herbert was a bit tired by the time we got to the hut, and had it been stocked with kerosene, and some tinned food, I should have been tempted to send Harry and Kath on, and stay the night in the hut ourselves, instead of walking the seven miles in here. However there was no oil and no food, so after tidying ourselves up and having a drink and some chocolate, and a quarter of an hour’s rest, we set off along the track down the Hooker Valley, the time by now was about 3,25 pm. Everyone had said “Oh there’s a level path from the hut to the Hermitage”. All things are comparative I suppose, and when you have got Cook and Tasman sticking up into the sky on one side, and Sefton on the other, the path may seem smooth and level, but put down in a more ordinary setting, it would be better described as a rough hilly track, losing itself frequently in shingle river beds, where one must pick ones way from rock to rock and stone to stone, and entailing some leaping of torrents in order to get across dry shod. In one place there was such a head of water coming down that Harry was a bit non-plussed about how to get us across and cast up and down the stream searching for a suitable place. He could not find one, so at last he walked out on to one boulder, and took a leap to another on the further side across a foaming mass of water about five foot wide. From there he cast down two rocks in an attempt to get one to sit firmly half way across and make a stepping stone for us. Both went tumbling down with the torrent. With a big effort he dislodged a larger one, which obediently rolled into place, and we were able to get over easily. About half way down the valley, the track did become definite, and we crossed the Hooker River by a swing bridge, and further on, back again by another, and so on to the grassy flats above this hotel. It was just 5.30 when we at last arrived, and we had been twelve hours on the road, so it’s no wonder Herbert was tired. The manager and manageress, Mr and Mrs Smith were on the porch to meet us and were most welcoming. The party Harry was to take out the next day, were there too, and all complaining that the weather had been so hot. As soon as we could get our climbing boots off, we went into the bar and had big glasses of shandy, except Kath, who would only have fizzy lemonade. It made me feel more thirsty to look at it. Hot baths, and dinner at 7 o’clock were a real pleasure. Harry and Kath had dinner with us, and we were genuinely sorry that it was our last evening with them. After dinner an old sheep farmer came up to me, and said “Are you the lady who came over the pass to-day?” “Yes” I said “and this lady too”, indicating Kath, who was sitting beside me. Now Kath is very small and slender, with charming brown hair that has a natural curl in it. She does it very simply, jut tying a narrow ribbon round to keep it in place, and it makes her look very young. She would easily pass for seventeen, though she is actually twenty-four. The old boy took a look at her, and turning to his plump and rather lethargic daughter, said, “Now if that little girl could do it, surely you could”. I explained to him that Kath was the mountaineer as far as we were concerned, and had cut steps on a nasty ice-field for something like an hour that afternoon. There is no denying that Herbert was tired, but he slept well that night, and had a completely slack day on Tuesday, so that he was recovered by Wednesday, which turned very wet, and gave us another day of rest. It cleared up on Thursday, and we went a pleasant short walk in the morning and another in the afternoon, and decided that if it remained fine, we had better take the chance and go up the Tasman Glacier to the Malte Brun Hut for a night leaving the following morning.
3.3.41 The Hermitage standing at an altitude of 2,000 ft above sea level is a couple of miles up the Hooker Valley, looking due north at Mount Cook- To the South East, over extensive grassy flats and wide stoney river beds, is the Tasman River, flowing out of the Tasman Glacier, which is the biggest glacier outside the Himalayas and the Arctic Circles. It is 28 miles long and averages two miles in width throughout its entire length. The last eight miles are entirely covered with moraine, and one can scarcely see the ice at all in that sector. About ten miles up the Tasman Valley, and twelve miles from here is a big hut, used in winter for Winter Sports (It has 99 bunks in it) A road passable for cars, with a certain amount of difficulty, has been made up to it, but not long ago a small river changed its course, and swept away a section of the road and a bridge, so that now one goes the first six miles or so in an ancient bus, At a place a little above the break passengers and staff dismount, and walk about a quarter of a mile to the prettiest little stream, bubbling along in the busiest manner between grassy banks and tumps of bushes. Its water is of a most lovely pale turquoise colour. This is crossed by means of a boat, swung on ropes across from bank to bank. Another short walk brings the company to the road again, where as many as possible pack into an extremely ancient seven or eight seater car. “Day Excursions” are taken up to the Ball Hut to see the splendid view, and if active enough, to go on to the Glacier. On Friday there were no day folk, only ourselves and our guide George Cook, but we had with us (1) the driver of the bus, who is also the photographer: (2) A very, old Guide who takes parties on the ice, or looks after them at the hut (3) A lad, probably in his early twenties, who drives and repairs cars, puts out the meals and washes up at the Ball Hut and generally makes himself useful. The reason for this large escort was that some members of the Australian Government were to come up to the Ball Hut that afternoon, and both the boat and the old car needed repairs done to them. The car showed its metal directly we got in by displaying an entirely fresh trouble. The bolt holding the shackles of the front springs in place, had worked loose, and there had to be a halt for repairs. There was a business of propping the jack on a stone to get it high enough to put pressure in the right place, and then some hearty blows with a large sort of sledge hammer were delivered, and at last the thing was fixed. It reminded us so vividly of our early touring years in India, when we used to mend our old Ford with hair pins, bits of wire and soap. As for as the stream the road is along the mountainside on the western wall of the valley, and is a reasonable affair. From the stream on, it is carried over huge morains, consisting of broken rock varying in size from ordinary road metal to boulders as big as a small house. The track has been smoothed over this, but not consolidated in any way, and it is evidently a common occurrence for rocks to slip on to the road. A shovel is carried in the car, and twice the driver stopped and hopped out to push unwanted bits of rock out of the way. After driving over the road, one only wonders that anything on a car keeps screwed up or in place for more than an hour or so. While all these excitements about the car were going on, more and more splendid views of the mountains up the Tasman Valley were opening up. The Ball Hut, where we eventually arrived, stands well up on a spur between a smaller glacier, called the Ball Glacier and the Tasman. Below it is a great waste of tangled morain banks, which have to be crossed before the clean ice is reached. In winter the whole place is under snow, and its much easier to move about, while the Glaciers themselves, now so badly crevassed, are deeply covered with snow, which fills up all the cracks, and makes it possible to go over them on Skis in any direction. Although it was only 11,30, we had an excellent cold lunch, and at mid-day exactly, shouldering our rucksacks, we set off. It was a slithery scramble of some hundred feet down from the hut, and then another half hour of bothersome scrambling up and down over morain banks till we got on to the Glacier ice of the Ball Glacier. The first hour up this was easy going over ice in good condition, only shaped into humps with smallish crevasses here and there, over which one could easily step. At the end of an hour we reached a tongue of moraine between the Ball and the Tasman Glaciers, and again had some clambouring over nasty huddles of loose rock, sitting down for ten minutes rest on the top of the final high bank, where we looked up the tremendous length of the Tasman. The surface of the ice somewhat resembled a rough sea, if you can imagine such a thing suddenly frozen, and turned white. Recent snow had covered the ice and the whole thing was sparkling white. George Cooke explained to us that we could not take a direct route to the Malte Brun Hut which was round a bend in the Glacier to the East, because at that bend there are tremendous crevasses, going across the glacier, instead of longitudinally as they do lower down and that therefore we had to walk almost over to the West side, eventually getting up even with the hut, and working along one of the ridges to the foot of the Mt Malte Brun. We had another hour of reasonably easy going, working up ice ridges on the sides of crevasses, without much step-cutting having to be done. We reached a conical heap of moraine, perhaps an acre in extent right out in the middle of the Glacier, and here we had another rest and an orange each. The difficult bit - - difficult for the guide more than for us was to come. He had to pick a path somehow amongst these crossway chasms, and it entailed a good deal of step-cutting, for a ridge would petre out and we would be compelled to find a place, where it was possible to cross a crevasse and get on to another ridge. It was interesting to see George Cook, pausing and gazing ahead, and suddenly making up his mind and starting off, with Herbert and myself obediently following after. There were of course moments when neither of us specially cared to look down into the deep cracks in the ice over which we had to tread onto small ice steps, but luckily ones feelings become deadened, and one does what is expected of one. For our next “spell” as the guides call these short rests, we had to sit on our ice axes, for there was no rock available. These pauses were a great treat, for the views were magnificent beyond words, and it was lovely to be able to gaze ones fill at the peaks. When walking out at a good pace on the ice one has to pay too much attention to ones feet to be able to attend to the view in any comfort.
By this time we could see the Hut perched about 500 or 600 ft up the slopes of Mount Malte Brun, and a wide shelf. The climb up to it looked distressingly steep, but I survived it better than I expected. The first three quarters of the way was up the bed of a dry water course, only the bed was set straight up on end, if you follow me. However we were able to climb up big boulders which were firm under the feet, and for the last bit we scrambled up an almost cliff-like slope, studied with firm rock and with a fair covering of plants. It was a delightful surprise when George Cook just in front of me, suddenly said “Here’s the Hut”, and I found that my head was jut topping the edge of the wide shelf on which the hut stands. The hut is also used for Winter Sports in the Cold Weather, when it is so easily accessible on Skis, and is a big place. Two sleeping rooms with sixteen bunks arranged in tiers of three above one another (and fitted with wire mattresses if you please!) and a living room in the centre, with a small kitchen behind. The time of our arrival was just five thirty, and we had taken half an hour less than the six hours prophesied by our guide. He got a billy boiling in no time, and we sat down to quantities of tea, and brown bread and honey. Before setting to on the food, I enquired when we were expected to eat again, and received the answer that it would be in about twenty minutes or half an hour! Between tea and supper, we did have a short interval in which to change in to dry clothes and have a look at the magnificent panorama of snow peaks, to see which we had made the expedition to this hut. I am at a loss to know how to convey to you any impression of that view. Below our feet the two mile wide white ribbon of the Glacier curved out of view on our right (north-east) in front of the swelling snow fields that lead to the rounded top of the Hochstatter Dome. Following down from the Dome in a great sweep of eighteen or twenty miles, we were facing the array of New Zealand’s Greatest snow peaks, from lovely Elie de Beaumont (10,200) which we could see so beautifully from near the Franz Joseph, showing quite a different form, past several more to delightful twin peaks of beautifully pure outline, called the Minerets, which were immediately opposite us, and on past more fine ten-thousanders, to the majestic bulk of Tasman, only about 450 ft lower than Cook, and more massive, and on to Cook himself, impressive, but not as graceful from this angle as it is from the Hermitage. After supper we watched the sun-set colours, which were exquisite on Elie and other peaks to-wards the head of the Glacier, but, since the sun was dropping immediately behind most of the other peaks, merely gave us their outline. We got up just before six and pulling on breeches and coats, wrapped ourselves in blankets, and went out to see the sunrise. At the beginning of the day, our position was right for the light. In the clear morning sky first an almost lilac light appeared behind Cook and Tasman, and soon turned to pink, which spread on to the snow peaks till the whole range was lit up. When the show was finished we went back to bed for half an hour or so, as we were not due to leave the Hut till 9 o’clock. Our journey down the Glacier took only five hours, and to-wards the end, when we were on the Ball Glacier, George Cook took us out of our way to its far side, to see a river running in a gorge of ice some 200 ft deep, and eventually disappearing under the ice, to join the other under-ice streams working their way along to form the Tasman River. It was worth turning aside to see. We peered over the ice cliff and saw below the river, of a delicate turquoise blue, winding its way in graceful curves between the walls of white and blue and green ice, with a merry tinkling sound. We followed its course for awhile, till we came to the place where it disappears from view. Once or twice our Guide cut steps on the outer side of ice ridges, with the slope towards the top of the ice cliff, and I felt distinctly happier when we were able to get back on to the safer side. It was a very hot climb over the moraine banks and up the steep ascent to the Ball Hut, which we reached just before 2. p.m. We had had a feed of tomatoes, and a tin of pineapple during our journey down, but all the same it was nice to find an excellent cold lunch spread out for us, and lots of tea to drink. A “Day Party” were up there, some of them wandering about close by, and one or two down on the ice, so we had to do the first half of the car journey home in two batches. Herbert and I and two others went off first, and after a few difficulties with the car, arrived at the stream and crossing, we selected a place where some tufts of grass and plants were growing amongst the rocks and stones, and sat or rather lay down to wait for the others. Our two companions, who had not been doing anything much all day, decided to walk in the six miles. It was a marvellous afternoon, and the hour of waiting passed pleasantly enough, Herbert reading a book on the stars sent him by Rosemary, and I dozing and looking at the mountains.
The marvellous weather goes on. We spent a lazy day on Sunday, only going for a sort walk in the evening, but yesterday we were quite energetic and taking lunch, we climbed almost to the top of Mt Sebastopol. 4,819 ft. There is a track for more than half way up the mountain, to a little mere, known as The Red Lake, from the red colour of the water weed growing on it. The rest of the way is steep, but easy climbing up rock and grass. When we got to the foot of the summit rocks, I refused to go any further. I was dripping with heat. We had gained a point from which we had a splendid view. There were comfortable grassy ledges on which to sit and eat, and the remaining few hundred feet of rock above us looked extremely steep and uncomfortable. Our climb had taken two hours from the hotel, which included a couple of miles of forest covered spur of another hill, and the crossing of a Creek. On our way down we stopped by the red lake, and Herbert had a dip in it. I would have done so to, but I still have an elastoplast bandage on my leg, and I saw no way of getting into the water without getting the bandage wet. Unfortunately we have to leave at 8 a.m to-morrow, so I want to finish letters, and pack. As a matter of fact it is little deprivation to stay in or near the hotel. As I sit here in a corner of the drawing room, I look straight up the valley to Mount Cook out of the north window of a square bay, and at Mout Sefton, standing up very close, out of the West window. We would like to have stayed here longer, but the Milford Track over which we want to walk further south, shuts on March 22nd, so we must move on. You cannot imagine more wonderful weather than we are having. Day after day the skies are cloudless and every peak and valley clear-cut in the bright sunshine. To-morrow we move on to Queenstown where we spend a week, and then we do a walking tour for eight days, the exact details of which are not yet fixed. We shall make a little stay at Lake Manipuri, and eventually go to Dunedin a bit before Easter to stay with the Miss Scott who was at Waiho with us.
A nice elderly couple have been staying here, Dr and Mrs. Wall of Wanganui (Dora will be interested to hear this) Mrs. Wall says that , if she still has her two maids, she would like us to go and spend a week with them in May. This would fit in well with our plans. We shall spend May seeing something of the North Island, I think, and cross to Australia at the beginning of June, as N.Z will be getting a bit cold by then. We shall cable an address in Australia fairly soon. It will probably be c/o a Bank in Brisbane.
And so I bring this enormous screed to an end. I rather fear I have written at too great length, urged on by the pleasure of living our journeys over again. There is always the comfort that any of you dear people can skip what does not interest you.
Thanks to May for a very nice letter and calendar card. We hope for another English mail soon. There will be a post in here tonight.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette
White Star Hotel
Queenstown. N.Z.
March 7th 1941
My darling Annette,
The longed for English and Canadian Mails, arrived here on the same evening as ourselves, and there were two weeks letters in each, so we had a regular feast of family news. The English letters were of the last week of December and the first week of January. It seems a pity that Dicky had to keep on darting away and coming home again, still I am glad you saw something of one another. I wish I could see him in his uniform. I wonder whether anyone has thought to take a photo of him. Its somewhat of a relief to hear that he was to be in a shore establishment for a while, but Heaven knows whether that is still so, for, as you must now have realized, the letters take about two months to come Thank you for sending the snap shot of yourself and friends in your B.A. Gowns. I can scarcely believe that it is Anne next to you. How has she managed to make herself look such a guy? She really is so attractive to look at. Romey has sent photos of herself and John, and they are attractive pictures of her. I wonder if she has sent copies home too. She seems to be feeling more at home in smartish clothes to judge from her general appearance. She sent the Science Calendar of the Manitoba University for us to too. I confess it does not mean much to me. There is a historical note in the beginning, which Dad says is not even written in grammatical English. Its perhaps a good thing that Romey has elected to study the Natural Sciences, as there is more chance to those being decently taught than there is of languages, literary or Historical subjects being adequately delt with. I am intrigued with your studies of Russian. What an excuse it will be to go to Russia in some distant future “after the War”! I am glancing down your letters as they lie beside me on the table, and I see mention of that amazing film of the breaking of the Tocoma Bridge in Washington. Like you, I felt most uncomfortable while watching it. It gave me a churned up feeling inside. Fancy the courage and faith needed to start building it again!
I am a little puzzled that no one mentioned my request for cheques to be given out on my behalf for Christmas presents, nor has Aunt said anything about the Christmas Turkey, or the best possible substitute, which I wished to subscribe to Highways Christmas dinner, or to the usual “family treat” which I hoped would still be possible in War time. I wonder if the letter in which I wrote all this was lost, - - but then it is odd that the copy did not fetch up. I am asking Aunt to repair the ommissions, if so far nothing has been done. There had been no mention either, of our telegram of Christmas greetings sent off from Christchurch, so I fear it must have been greatly delayed. I am so glad you had a few frivolities in Christmas week, and that Christmas Day itself was more successful than you had anticipated. Certainly having the Aunts for a more limited time would be an improvement. If Jock Hamilton had to be wounded, I am so glad that it was only slightly. I had a letter from Helen Hamilton a few weeks ago, and it is one of the bundle I mean to answer when opportunity arises. It was nice that you saw Mr Christie, and got some news of Peggy. Where is she in Africa? If you have any communication with any members of the family, do give them our greetings.
Its so typical of officialdom to take the attitude that your people have taken over the lights. I wonder whether you were victorious in your battle with them on the matter of individual desk lights. I hope you were. Your mention that Gwen had received a picture paper showing New Zealand Scenery makes me think I must collect a few of the Tourist pamphlets and post them home. Photos are expensive, and I dont propose to buy those for sending to you, though I shall have quite a nice little collection to show when I come home myself. This Island is a scenic gem, without any doubt. I scarcely dare whisper it to myself, but to-day I am feeling almost satieated with lovely scenery, and would give a lot to be able to do a good honest days’ work. I would give still more if I could do anything to give you a few days holiday in beautiful places. I would specially like to have had you with us for the crossing of the Alps. You would have appreciated it in every possible way. Oddly enough I am finding it difficult to read these days. I find my mind swinging off to think about you all at home, and if I am not careful, brooding a bit on the danger possibilities to which you are all exposed. Best love, my dear daughter.
Mother
From LJT to Romey
The White Star Hotel,
Queenstown, NZ
March 8th, 1941
(marked rec’d April 7)
My darling Romey,
Two letters from you arrived here on the same evening that we did ---Wed March 5th. They were the letters of Jan 27th, Feb 2nd and Feb 9th as well as one of Jan 30th from Cousin Susie and photos in two envelopes. The first had not been opened by the Censor anywhere. The second batch had been opened by the Censor in Winnipeg and bore the postmark Feb 12th. I don’t understand why there was the delay over the first one. By letter post we also received the Star Book for Dad, the Calendar of the University and the map of Winnipeg. Thanks for all of them.
It is great fun to have the map, see where you live and be able to follow your wanderings. It’s interesting to have some information about the University too. Getting your letters and the snapshots, as well as two weeks of English mail, was a tremendous pleasure, for we had been a long time without letters. Thank you for writing so much and so well. We do enjoy it!
I seem to have done something quite balmy about your letters, I posted a letter to you directly we arrived at the Hermitage, but what was in it? For I find in my attaché case, a whole batch of letters written during the last days of our stay at the Franz Joseph. I wrote an enormous description of our crossing and our climb up the Tasman Glacier to the Malte Brun Hut, but it was so bulky that I sent it off to you by sea-mail, thinking it was purely descriptive, it did not much matter when you got it. Do tell me whether you got a letter from me posted a the Hermitage on Feb 25th and if so, what was in it. Briefly our news (which you will get in detail in the family letters) is that we enjoyed our stay of 8 ½ days at the Hermitage, right amongst the snows. We came on here on Wed March 5th and find this, in its different way, an exquisite place, too. I think I shall be writing the family letter about it tomorrow and will post it with this on Monday.
It is giving me lots of pleasure to see the snapshots of you. These are very nice ones, and they show that you have grown up a lot since I saw you. In the fur-coat one specially, you are quite definitely the young woman, and no longer the school-girl. Polo’s shape, somewhat camouflaged against the bushes in the previous photos, shows up well against the snow in these. I was amazed to hear of your Winnipeg temperatures going from 41 degrees below to 40 degrees above zero. It must be difficult to adjust yourselves to such tremendous changes. We laughed over your account of the visit of the two Air Force boys -- ‘Wilf’ (I don’t think you mention a surname) and Len Weldon. Their stay easily beats that of M. Marsoutier, the Aministrateur of Chandanagore, who, invited for lunch at 1 pm, arrived at 12:45 and stayed till 5:30! Your account of those boys’ lives is interesting and makes one realize how some boys have to rough it and knock about looking after themselves, and how carefully we guard and arrange for careers for our boys.
Harry Ayres interested me with stories of all the different things he has done. It puzzles me how he had time for them, for he is only 28 now and he has been a guide for about 9 years. Before that he prospected for gold, cleared a line through forest for a power-line, and since no skilled labour was available, put up the high tension electric wires himself, in conjunction with the other lad who was working with him. He’s done odd jobs on a farm too.
I saw “Bittersweet” twice on the stage, once with Peggy Wood and once with Evelyn Laye (I preferred the latter) and I just adored it -- but I have not seen it as a film. “Gone with the Wind” is a wonderful film. Quite a masterpiece, don’t you think?
There come moments in this peaceful lazy life of wandering about and enjoying marvelous scenery, when I feel ungrateful and rebellious and long to be able to do a good hard days work, or rather months of work for the War. I am feeling a little like that now. Aunt is working so hard. I would love to be able to help her in some way. Now, with Gwen getting married it will be more difficult than ever for her. I hope she will be able to get a maid. I had not heard that Gwen was engaged again.
Will you give my love to Cousin Susie and thanks for her letter? I shall not answer it this week, for I am sure already the envelope is almost overweight. It is so nice to have the photo of her and Helen. I love Helen’s little hat! Best love, dear daughter. You are never long out of my thoughts. How often I wonder when I shall be able to see you again.
Love,
Mother
Family letter from LJT No 9
The White Star Hotel
Queenstown. N.Z.
Saturday. March 8th 1941
My Dears,
The much-longed for English and Canadian letters reached here the same evening that we did, and there were two weeks letters in each, so we were able to wallow in news of you all. There were photos too to enjoy: Annette as a B.A. and Romey as a grown-up young lady. It was fun to see them all. I am so hoping that someone will have taken a photo of Richard in N.O.’s uniform, as I much want to see what he looks like. The letters from England were those of the last week in December and the first week in January, so you see the mails take an awfully long time to reach us. It is odd what a difference it makes to my feelings when I have had letters from home fairly recently. When a long while has elapsed with no mail, I begin to have a sort of lost feeling. We appreciate the letters from you all enormously. Knowing how busy everyone is in England now, we realize that sparing the time to write good letters means much more from you than it does from us, for we are idle folk for the time-being. The last two days have been a period in which I have been aching to be able to do some work. I get this feeling in occasional waves. I have no doubt that most of you would give a good deal not to have to do some work for a while.
On Wednesday morning we left the Hermitage with regret, for it is a splendid spot, and the Manager and Manageress of the Hotel are kindly people. Of course they cannot compare in any way with the Graham family, but we did not expect that. Mt Cook gave me a treat on the last morning. I woke just in time to see bright rosy light on its great Eastern walls, and as I lay lazily in bed gazing at the beautiful lines of the mountain against the pale sky, filmy clouds rolled up and veiled it, taking on the rosy tints that the mountain had had a few seconds before. I got out of bed and hung out of my window, finding that the whole of the eastern sky was ridged with pink and orange clouds, and that cushions of cloud were rolling over the range from the west. Mt. Cook came and went through the mist like a ghost, and our last views of him as we drove away were of that elusive nature. Our luck was in, for we were the only two people in the “service car”. Herbert sat beside the driver, and I lounged in the back. The road winds and switchbacks round and over mountain spurs for the first thirty miles to Lake Pukaki, and for ten miles or so along its banks. This part of the drive was no joy to Herbert, but from Pukaki (One small Hotel and a cottage or two) on it was better. We crossed flat plains, with mountains between six and seven thousand feet high away on either hand. This region is devoted to sheep, and is spoken of as “The Mackenzie Country”. It looked inhospitable to us. It is what is known as tussock land. A tall coarse grass grows in hard tufts, as its name indicates, but normally speaking the short green grass beloved by the sheep, grows between the tussocks. Now, in the early Autumn of an exceptionally dry season, we could see no green at all behind the long miles of wire fences, and when here and there we met flocks of sheep, we wondered what the poor brutes could find to live on. Indeed many of them did not look in good condition. Here and there a lonely looking little wooden farm house, stood rather gauntly in the dried-up landscape. Further on, where a river wound across the plain its course marked by willows and poplars, there were several better looking farms, with a few trees and some pasture land with solemn cows grazing. Near here we passed a small school house, where evidently the dozen or so of children had just arrived for the days work, and they lent over the fence and waved to us. Behind them several horses were hitched up under some trees. They had brought the children from the far off farms, we supposed. Not so many miles on, 26 from Pukaki, to be exact, we came to the town of Omarama. Its not a large town. There is one small and very simple hotel, where we had “morning tea” in a stuffy little parlour with lots of lace curtains, china ornaments and paper flowers. The rest of the town consists of a small pub with petrol pumps adjoining and a General Store, and half a dozen little houses. The mountains on either side of the plain were converging, and formed a cirque in front of us. They were bare gaunt rocky hills, that would not have looked out of place on the shores of the Red Sea. It was through the Lindis Valley amongst the hills that we now had to thread our way up to the Lindis Pass. It was a long climb, but picturesque, for the hills towering up on either side of us were fine, and there was more greenery to be seen. On the way to the Pass we met the road coach from Pembroke. It drew up along side our car, and the drivers exchanged news. From inside came the sound of greeting and the door opened and out stepped Mr. and Mrs. Wall, who had left the Hermitage a few days before, and were now on their way back to Christchurch. After a few minutes chat, patiently born by the other passengers in the bus, the Walls climbed back into their seats, and the bus went on its way. There is no special view from the Lindis Pass, for it is shut in with the ranges, nor is the descent from it steep and sudden. On the far side we came into country of a different type. It was more broken up and varied. In many places there were old spoil banks left from the days of searching for gold. In places the country and the hills above it appeared to be real bad lands, barren and scabbed with flat scales of rock. In other places there were prosperous looking fields, with sheep and cows grazing, and even some crops and ploughed fields. There were plantations of trees, here and there along the sides of the road, or edging the big grazing paddocks, as we drove further south, and groups of lombardy poplars, willows and Eucalyptus round the scattered houses and in groups on the hill-sides. Crossing one or two small rivers, we came to the township of Tarras, quite a considerable place, with a sizable school, a number of houses and a pretty little church on a small hill, flanked by a few cypress trees and one or two lombardy poplars. Soon after we crossed the Clutha River, which is a fair size up here not far from its source, and becomes one of New Zealands biggest rivers as it nears the sea, carrying a surprising head of water. This is the river which is suspected of harbouring much gold in its bed, but so far it has proved too much for the ingenuity of man to turn the river aside and get the gold out. These mountain rivers of New Zealand are so different from the fat placid streams of the English country-side. They all have tremendous wide stony beds, down which one or two streams of water meander in fine weather, but which are capable of carrying a mass of flood water when the necessity arises. There were many plantations of trees, English, Australian, and many sorts of conifers, which in some cases, I suspect, come from Northern Europe, or from America, near the Clutha, and we saw notices indicating that here was an experimental acclimatizing station of the N.Z. Forest Dept. In a little while we dropped down into the small town of Pembroke on the beautiful blue Lake Wanaka, arriving at the door of the Hotel at five minutes to one. Wanaka is charming, and the Hotel seems a nice place, with a dining room looking up the lake, and behind a large old garden with fine examples of English trees, which have a remarkably ancient appearance. There is a mulberry, which might easily have passed for one of Shakespeare’s planting had it happened to be in Stratford-on-Avon. It was full of ripe fruit and we were given free permission to go and eat what we wished. Our comfortable sole occupancy of the car was now over, for we picked up three passengers here. I went into the front seat with Herbert and the driver, but there was not really room to sit properly, and we got stiff and uncomfortable, and before we reached Queenstown, Herbert’s back was very tired. I think it is a great shame of the Government Tourist Dept, that they have this habit of expecting three people to sit in the front seat of ordinary cars, for there is not room for three, and anyhow the fares are pretty expensive, and should ensure a proper seat. Luckily the drive was not long. We left the Lake and began, almost at once, a climb up a valley, which later grew very steep to take us over the Crown Range. It was a long long, pull, up between fine great mountains, their sides marked here and there by water channels, used in the old days by miners in working the gold. At the crest of the pass, the driver stopped the car and we all got out to look at the view. This was a true pass, with a definite summit, its altitude was 3,700ft odd, as far as I remember. Far below us on the left a road ran beside a river, and a car speeding along looked about black-beetle size. In front of us, the road fell away in a series of steep zig zags, and in the distance we could see Lake Wakitipu shining brightly blue in the bright light of a perfect afternoon. We could pick out this little town of Queenstown, and the driver pointed out a few of the more outstanding peaks above it. Luckily the gradient down from the pass is so steep and the road so narrow, that it has to be taken very slowly and did not make Herbert feel sick. From the foot of the mountains to Queenstown we drove through pretty fertile country, and arrived at the hotel a little after four. The early part of our drive had been slow, for we had to leave parcels of bread and newspapers at a number of farms. This is a comfortable hotel, run by pleasant people, and Queenstown is a lovely spot. Lake Wanaka is about 45 miles long and from three to four miles wide. It runs north and south for about sixteen miles, then takes a right angle turn east and runs east and west for about fourteen miles, turning south again, and continuing for some sixteen more miles. Queenstown is that the east of the east-west portion. The north of the Lake is in wild country where there are no roads and only a few tracks, many unclimbed mountains, and districts where few people have penetrated. All about the lake there are fine mountains, mostly bare of trees, but with attractive native bush and woods of English trees and Australian gums on their lower slopes. The lake is 1,220 ft deep, and the peaks rise to over 6,000 ft above it. To the East there is a splendid steep rocky, spiky range, called “The Remarkables”, all rock now, but clothed in snow for many months of the year. There are good walks about and steamer trips, for those that like them, which Herbert does not, as he firmly told the Tourist Bureau. However we did make a short half hour’s trip on a little launch yesterday morning, up a little side arm of the lake to the east, to a place where hopeful people spent great sums of money putting in a dam to pen the water in the lake and dry the bed of the Kawarau River, with the intention of getting gold there. It was not a success, and the only use of the dam now is that it carries the new road across the wide river bed. We had an hour there for a walk, and got home in comfortable time for lunch. We are still enjoying perfect weather, and have just been some mild walks, and wanders in the rather charming botanical gardens. We have also enjoyed a little shopping, for it is two months since we saw a shop. Although classed as a bourgh, this is really a small place, and dominated by the two good tourist hotels, I imagine, with a fair number of subsiduary guest houses. The shops are not bad for a country place, and the shop-keepers are most friendly and inclined to talk, so simple purchases take a long time to accomplish. We have abandoned the plan of going up to the north of this lake and doing a four days walking tour, staying at little mountain huts, across to Milford, and are going down by road coach to Te Anau next Friday, and start the Milford Track walk by the ordinary tourist method, i.e. by steamer up Lake Te Anau and then three days walk to Milford, staying each night in glorified “huts” fitted with electric light and shower baths, and looked after by care-takers, so that there is no question of having to carry and cook your own food. We shall stay a night or two at the Milford Hostel, and then return by the same way to Te Anau. I am a little sorry to give up the more adventurous plan, but I dont think Herbert is robust enough to risk arriving at a hut, and finding that there is no fire-wood or that the blankets have been stolen or something of that sort. We shall find the Milford track done by the ordinary route, much less labourious. I have picked up a nasty cold from the driver of our car the other day. I think I have controlled it somewhat, but it is making me feel rather heavy and stupid to-day. It was a glorious morning, so we strolled up the hill behind the town for about half an hour, I with a bag of darning and Herbert with a book, and finding a nice spot, we spent a morning sitting on the hill-side.
When we were driving down here we were surprised to find such barren dry lands, and talking to the Propriator of the Hotel at Pembroke, we commented on it. He told us that the soil is good enough and will grow anything if it gets rain, but the rainfall at Pembroke is only 20 inches a year, and further north it is only fourteen. The rivers are fed by the melting snow on the ranges. What a demonstration it is of the way a high mountain barrier drains the moisture out of wet winds. So few miles away over the mountains is the dripping West Coast, with its rain forest, and even every inch of soil and tree and rock growing its mass of plants!
There have been some nice people staying here, notably an old lady of over seventy taking a young neice of nineteen for a tour. She is very much the old English gentlewoman, blessed with a wide education and a bubbling sense of fun. She has taken many older neices for a grand tour of Europe as they grew up, but that is barred just now, so the youngest is seeing New Zealand instead. This old Miss Neve and her sister live in Christchurch, and have asked us to go and see them there. Other people have come from the Hermitage, and seem quite old friends. We find ourselves anything but lonely in these N.Z. Hotels.
Wireless reception is bad here, but we do get the news sufficiently well to follow as a rule, and listen eagerly from day to day to hear what Germany is doing in Bulgaria, and how things are going in Yugo-Slavia. I have been going through a period of great longing to be at work on something for the war. I feel quite appaled at the unfairness of my living at ease and being feasted by beauty as I am, while most of the rest of the world is working and enduring hardship!
Did I say that we think we shall have to fly back to India, and that we shall probably leave N.Z. at the end of May for the warmer climate of Australia? I am writing to my friend Mrs Tonge for advice about where to go. I expect it will be somewhere in Queensland, for we shant want to stay more than a week or ten days in Sydney I think.
Looking ahead, I think it will not be possible to post a letter to you next week. We intend to leave for the Milford Track on Saturday, spend three days on the walk up, two days at Milford, and three days coming back and there will be no postal facilities, and no type-writer! After this then, expect a gap in letters. It will probably be a fortnight to-day before I am banging away on this old machine again. I am writing a bit early this week so that a copy of this letter can go to Rosemary, whose letter for “The Clipper” has to leave here to-morrow night.
There are signs that Autumn is coming. Some of the trees are beginning to turn gold, and the berries, which are in the greatest profusion on the roses and rowans and the hawthorns, are scarlet and crimson. There is a sharpness in the air in the mornings and the evenings too, but we are having days of perfect sunshine. I so often think about the weather in England, and what a relief it must be to all of you as the daylight grows longer.
Best love to you all, my dears.
LJT
Family Letter from LJT No 10.
The Hotel. Te Anau. N.Z.
March 22nd 1941.`
My Dears,
It has come to pass as I said. It is exactly a fortnight since I was last writing to you from Queenstown. We spent a pleasant quiet time there, taking rather short walks and a couple of small launch trips on the Lake. The cold I was incubating, and probably mentioned in my last letter, was not a bad one, but enough to make me feel disinclined for long and violent exercise, and at the same time, Herbert got one of the tiresome turns he seems to get every month or six weeks, when his temperature drops to below normal, and he feels just wretched. Luckily Queenstown is such a pretty spot, and the weather was so perfect, that it was easy to do nothing much and still enjoy it. I do regret that we had not the energy to climb the 5,740 ft high Ben Lomond, but we neither of us felt like it. There is a track of sorts most of the way up, and a shelter hut about half way. The weather became a little cloudy the day we left. Our journey was entirely by bus, with a change at mid-day. For the first twenty miles or so, the road follows the eastern shore of the lake. It is distinctly twisty and undulating, but after good doses of glucose, Herbert survived pretty well to what is called the township of Kingston at the foot of the lake. A Railway runs from here to Lumsden, but seemingly does not carry passengers. An occasional goods train links up with the steamer, which carried heavy goods up the lake to Queenstown. Passengers used to go this way too, but for some reason, Government, which runs rail, steamer and road bus, have stopped the passenger traffic on the boat, to many people’s regret. Kingston seemed to us a small village. First we passed the school, to which we had brought a few pupils from farms up the road. Next we came to the railway station, near which we stopped for ten minutes, while parcels were exchanged between the bus driver and the station-master. Meantime we got out and had time to look round. Near by was a small and quite attractive looking hotel, and sticking out from a nicely clipped hedge beyond it, was a notice “Here it is”. Herbert and I were filled with curiosity I wanted him to go and investigate more closely, but he was averse to doing so, and we walked nearer in company. It was evident that the notice referred to what we suspected, but I still dont see how one could tell that it did not refer, or should I say, address itself to Ladies as well. Besides the hotel, the school and the R.S. there were perhaps a dozen small houses, but I saw no shops, and that is Kingston, looking up lovely Lake Wakitipu, and surrounded by fine mountains. From here on, the mountains took on more the character of hills, lower, less steep and rocky and showing more grass. It was all sheep country, and had been since we left Queenstown. In fact most of the road from Queenstown to Kinston runs through two sheep stations, the first for fourteen miles, its boundaries no longer marked by gates that have to be opened and shut, but by those ingenious cattle stops of six or eight foot wide iron grating across the road, across which sheep and cattle cannot get, - and the second for thirteen miles. They run thirty to forty thousand head of sheep, our driver told us. It was pleasant country we went through as we moved south. The wide valleys carried plenty of green grass, which here and there had been left and cut for hay. Crops had been grown and gathered in here and there and the farms were bigger and better built than most of those we had seen further north. In one place we had to stop to allow a flock of two thousand sheep to pass us. The driver and a couple of the passengers got out and started shepherding the animals past the car, for the shepherd and his dogs were way at the back of the flock. It must have taken five or ten minutes for the mob to pass us. The little used railway line was close to us all the time and at most of the stations we stopped to give and receive bags of mail. Here and there we pulled up close beside a post with a hook on it, and the driver leant out and hung a bag of mail on the hook. We passed some quite sizable villages or townships, with their railway stations. Some have Maori names such as Nokoma, some Settler’s names like Five Rivers, and some, the majority I think, with Scotch names such as Atholl. South of Atholl, we got right out on to flattish plains, and reached Lumsden where we lunched and changed buses about a quarter to one, and had an hour and a half in which to feed and see the town. We lunched reasonably well and cheaply at one of four or five Hotels, which seem to be the great feature of the town, which is quite a “place”. It has a street of shops, a number of lesser pubs, clusters of houses, some wool warehouses, a swimming club, situated on the river, and a bowling club with several pitches or whatever they are called. All this we discovered as we walked round the place after lunch. I suspect its importance is due to the fact that it is a junction for one or two railway lines and bus routes, and that it is also the market town and shopping centre for the country round about. Our bus was scheduled to start at 2.15, but what with hunting for lost tickets, packing in more and more parcels of bread, and packets of newspapers, and general chit-chat, it was well past 2.30 when we took the road to the west. Only about half an hour away we came to the little town of Mossburn, where the hilly country begins again. There is a fine big new hotel here, built for people who want to fish, and on the side of a small cottage near it was painted the picture of a large fish, with the legend beneath it “SO BIG”. Query! Was this the name of the cottage, or just a joke? Here, at the village emporium, we must have spent quite a quarter of an hour, delivering parcels of bread and newspapers, and apparantly taking on board a lot more parcels. The country became prettier and prettier as we drove on to the west. Rolling grassy hills grew higher and steeper, and the shadows of the clouds gave them colour and interest. Houses were few and far between, and at each house, or group of public works roadmens’ huts, we stopped to deliver parcels and papers, so progress was slow. At a cross roads, where the signpost said “The Plains, 18 miles”, there were three or four boxes by the roadside, with different farmers names on them, and into them went parcels and papers. Just as we were moving off, an old car drove up, and the man in it collected the goods. It seems a long way to have to come for the necissities of life. The scenery had changed again. We were out on an undulating plain of wild scrub bush country, with impressive mountains not far away in many directions. When we came to fork roads, one branch going direct to Te Anau, our destination, and one to Manupouri, we were somewhat aghast to find that we were going via Manipuri, an extra fourteen miles. Herbert was getting tired and would have liked to get in as soon as possible. At Manipuri we drew up at the very countrified hotel, all that there is there, and were told that we had half an hour there and could go for a walk along the Lake. We were here well into beech forest and tall bush. The Lake is a big many armed sheet of water, with great mountains, bush covered on their skirts, rising steeply from in and finishing in fantastic rock peaks. To the West and South of it the country is little known and much of it unexplored. The steepness of the mountains and the thickness of the bush, combined with the scourge of the sandflies, make it difficult of acess. It was interesting to come back into the wet areas of the West and the rain forest, with its ferns and mosses but, in spite of its beauty, I prefer more open country, to the Bush. We now turned northward to Te Anau, and reached this hotel about 5.30. It is 49 miles from Lumsden, so we had hoped to be in in comfortable time for tea, not guessing at all the delays, and at the diversion to Manapuri. As it was we had time to bath and change, listen to the 6,15 war news from Daventry, and be ready for dinner at 6.30, to which early hour we have got pretty well accustomed. This hotel is a nice place, fairly new, and like so many New Zealand buildings, of flimsy construction. The rooms are rather small, so we have taken two singles, and by that means are very comfortable. As far as I can se, no extra space for dressing-table, or for putting clothes is allowed for two people in most hotels in this country. People seem to travel with the minimum of luggage, so I suppose they have few things to put anywhere. Lake Te Anau, on the shores of which the hotel stands, is a long, rather narrow lake running for 45 miles north and south. We are here almost at the southern end, on the eastern shore, which , for about half the distance up the Lake, is not covered with bush, but is open rolling country, mostly clothed with bracken and clumps of manuka, a small leaved flowering shrub growing to some eight or ten feet. On the other side of the Lake and all round the northern half, mountains rise up steeply to five and six thousand feet and more, thickly covered with dense bush to within probably two thousand feet of their summits. It is a magnificent lake, and well worth a visit for its own sake, but like most other people, we had come here as the jumping off place for the famous Milford Track. The little steam launch which was to take us to the top of the lake, left at 8,30 - - actually she was late, and we did not get away till nearly 9 o’clock, and steamed up the Lake for 3 ½ hours. It was a disappointing day as far as weather was concerned, for there were low grey clouds hiding the tops of the mountains, and rather a chilly wind blowing. However we enjoyed the voyage well enough, and were warmed and cheered by plenty of hot tea down in the little cabin about 11 o’clock. We arrived at the jetty at the top of the Lake about 12 o’clock, and walked the half mile through a beech wood (the small leaved N.Z. beeches) to Glade House, a sort of hostel, something between a glorified hut and a hotel, for lunch. The sand flies are appalling in all this heavily bushed country, and all windows and doors at Glade House, at the Huts en route, and at the hotel at Milford are wired with fine gauze. Our party consisted of three girls, two of them perhaps rather old to be so described, from Dunedin, all of them working in the offices there, and all pleasant nice people, a man about Herbert’s age, not specially interesting, but a good quiet type who fitted in well, - - a stupid little woman from Australia, whom we all quickly began to find irritating, and the woman, Miss O’Callaghan, who runs the office of this hotel, and was taking the last chance of doing the track this year. She is a dear, and we all liked her very much. Oh! I forgot! There was also a lad, very young and callow, who looked and seemed about seventeen, but said he was twenty-one, and doing a tour of N.Z. before joining up for his army training. He amused us, for he was rushing round so quickly that he did not know what he had seen or what he was going to see. He had tickets for everything, and convulsed us by announcing that he was going to climb Mt Tasman. Mt Tasman is not much lower than Mt Cook, and a far more difficult climb. When we asked what other climbing the boy had done, he said none, but “he had a ticket to climb Tasman”. We preserved our gravity well, all things considered, though Miss Fennessy, the youngest of the girls and only one generation out of Ireland, ready to laugh at anything, was all of a twinkle. It turned out, of course, that the ticket was just for the ordinary tourist party to go on to the Tasman Glacier, but the ticket to climb Tasman became a regular joke. The boy was only with us that first afternoon, for he doubled stages, in order to pack more into his time. We each carried our rucksacks, containing our clothes. The two huts on the track have resident care-takers, who cook and look after the parties going through, and bedding and towels are provided. The first afternoon’s walk is an easy ten miles with a gentle rise of 500ft. The path lies beside the river and through beech forest to begin with. Presently the valley narrows in, and the beeches give way to mixed bush, with quantities of ferns, moss and lichen, while the river takes on the nature of a mountain torrent. In all the mountain country I have been in, I have never seen any, where the mountains rise so steeply from narrow valleys, and yet if I exhaust surprise over the Clinton Canyon up which we are travelling, I shall have no reserve of expression left for Milford Sound and its surroundings which are even more astonishing. It was a new experience for Herbert and myself to be considered the toughs of the party, for up in the climbing regions, we always felt more like the mutts. Miss O’Callaghan, Mr. Screeton and ourselves, were the only ones who were really sensibly equipped for the hike. We all had thick stockings and socks and nailed boots. “The Girls” had fairly stout walking shoes, but they were not satisfactory for mountain tracks, and the little “Aussie” had the most absurd light shoes with high-heels, which were a curse to her and to everyone else all the way to Milford. Four of us walked the ten miles in three and a half hours, without feeling that we were hurrying, and greatly surprised the hut-keepers, who said that we had made record time (which I find hard to believe). The Huts consist of the kitchen and living quarters of the staff, for besides the hut-keeper and the wife, there is a guide at each hut, who accompanies parties up the pass, and at other times, fetches up supplies with a pack horse. The horse, so Herbert told us, had selected the little tunnel-like path through the bush to the Gentleman’s Convenience, as his kennel (Herbert’s word), and as we saw on our return journey, he fitted into it nicely, so that would-be visitors to that place had some difficulty edging past him. - - - But I have wandered from my description: - - There is a central living room, with long tables and forms and a few canvas chairs. The ladies dormitory leads off this, and has a double row of bunks, 20 in all round it, a basin with hot and cold water laid on, and a huge open fire-place. The men’s dormitory is on the far side of the kitchen, and presumably is much the same. There were shower baths with hot and cold water outside, open to the sky above, so not very convenient when it was raining, as it was slightly when we arrived.
The next morning was again cloudy. Herbert and I soon left the others behind, and though we waited once for about ten minutes by a small lake, watching Paradise ducks and blue mountain ducks with some pleasure, there was no sign of the other, so we decided to go on. We were climbing up to Makinnon’s Pass, the 3,400 ft watershed, which blocks the valley from side to side. The path is well graded and we were able to do the climb at a steady pace, without any rests. We were pleased to get out of the bush country into alpine and sub-alpine belts (Sorry I have reversed the order of those. . As we came into the open rocky country, we also got into the wet clouds and a cold wind, and stopped to put on windproofs and mackintoshes. Great peaks loomed above us through the clouds, and we kept on getting glimpses of tremendous rock cliffs, but we could see nothing of the valleys below. At last, past some little tarns, we came to the shelter hut, where we were to have lunch. We did not then know that a guide was coming up with the party behind, and that another came from the opposite direction to meet us, so I hurried down to fill a couple of “billies” at a tarn, and we began to examine the oil stove to see how it worked, when the door opened, and a ruddy cheeked, blue-eyed cheerful looking youth, with a shovel over his shoulder, blew in. Seeing the shovel over his shoulder, I said “Do you belong here”. Evidently he did not hear properly, and replied “I’ve come up from Milford way”, so I thought he was another traveller, but possibly one who knew the place well, for he took over the lighting of the stove, and after a few minutes, we realized that he was the guide who had come to meet us. It was half an hour before the rest of the party arrived, and we had the tea made and ready for them. On the downward journey, Herbert and I went ahead even quicker than on the up grade, for our heavy nailed boots enabled us to lunge down over the rough rocky track and across the boulders of the stream beds, far more easily than the more lightly shod members of the party. Also we were the only ones who were in pretty good training. It was a magnificent descent, though alas! we got no real views, and a light misty rain fell most of the time. We reached Quinton huts about 3.20, and having dumped our packs, we immediately set out for the mile and a quarter walk to the Southerland Falls. They are worth taking some trouble to see. They are said to be the highest in the world, but it is only a narrow stream that leaps over the cliff 1,907 ft above the valley, and hurtles down in three huge leaps. I was fascinated looking up, to watch the river coming to the brink and hurling itself into space. I liked to wonder whether it was filled with terror at coming to this awful edge and not being able to stop. - - - That was what it looked like. We spent an hour on our visit to the falls, and when we got back, the others had still not arrived. They came soon after. The Aussie had twisted her ankle slightly, and had been extremely slow on the descent, and they had rested a while at another little shelter hut. We had some tea, and they went off to the falls, leaving us to bath and change at leisure. Quinton is a much newer hut, and has electric light, hot and cold shower baths, indoors and proper indoor sanitation.
The following day was much finer. The mountain tops were all showing, and were vastly impressive. We had an easy six mile walk all more or less on the down grade to a hut, from which the journey continues by an open boat with an outboard motor, down the lovely Arthur River, and along the still more lovely Lake Ada for five miles. We had a very early lunch and rather a tiresome wait at the hut, for we had walked too quickly: - all of us this time, and the boat-man and the boat had not arrived. We had to stay inside the hut, for the sandflies were too bad out of doors. They dont worry a bit when one is walking, but devour one directly one stops. Once started on the boat journey, it was exquisite. There was no wind. It was warm and fine. The water of the river and of the Lake was as clear as crystal, and we could watch the big spotted trout swimming, and see the pretty strands of water-weed and the rocks and stones on the bottom. The reflections of the great mountains were perfect, and the whole thing quite dream-like in its lovliness. From the end of Lake Ada we had another mile walk through bush, to a landing stage called “Sandfly Point” to which the steam launch from Milford Sound comes. We had a wait of a quarter of an hour there, but luckily there was a breeze on the edge of the water and the sand-flies were not bad enough to drive us inside the hut. Once on the launch, a quarter of an hour took us to Milford Landing stage, where we all climbed on to the hotel lorry for the five minutes drive up to the house.
I find it hard to describe Milford Sound. From this narrow arm of the sea, so deep that there are only one or two small inlets where it is possible to anchor, there rise up the very steepest mountains I have ever seen. Thousands of feet of rock cliff finishing five or six thousand feet above sea level, in rugged, jagged granite spikes and towers. There is less snow about this year than has ever been known, but there is one peak , Pembroke, which has its great ice-field still intact, though rent across and across with huge bergschrunds and crevasses. Our first day at Milford was spent in a launch trip down the Sound to the sea. We steamed along under the huge precipices and marvelled how the trees and plants find foothold on many of them. Some do defeat them, and the cliffs of “The Lion” rising some three thousand feet practically sheer from the water, dont harbour more than mosses and a few small ferns. We were landed at a small bay in the dinghy, and had a walk of half an hour through a bush track to another bay, known as Greenstone Bay, where we all hunted for the famous greenstone, and found a few bits. We went off to the launch again for lunch, and then steamed a little further out round a point. There was too much wind to go far, so we turned and went back up the sound, lying to in a small inlet to give some of the party the opportunity to fish. The launch rolled a bit while she was not moving and some of us did not like it too much, and were glad when it was said that the wind was blowing the boat too much on shore for it to be possible to fish properly. Two blue cod were the total catch, and I must say, unless you are needing the food, this sort of fishing seems to me the dullest pass time. We had tea before we landed (The Captain, by the way, was extremely like John Barrymore), and later went for a short walk. The drawback to being in Milford for any length of time, is that it is so shut in with almost unclimable mountains, that there is only one direction in which it is possible to walk, and that is up the road which is being constructed up a valley to meet a great tunnel, which is being cut through the mountains, by which eventually, a road will reach this West Coast.
On our second day we walked about six and a half miles up this road, taking a picnic lunch to a famous chasm. It is indeed a strange sight. The Cleddau River, suddenly cuts a great series of rents and holes through the rock, through which it plunges. In one or two places above it the rocks almost meet and one can peer down into blue-green pools far below. The river is low at present, and above the chasm, we were able to sit out on some water-worn rocks, and eat our lunch, with comfort and pleasure, for there seemed to be scarcely any sand-flies about. For about three or four miles of our homeward way, we got a lift on a public works lorry, which was good fun. The valley of the Cleddau is fine, and one gets good views of the 9,000 (odd ) snow peak of Tutako, which baffled many attempts to climb it, and has now only been ascended three or four times.
Herbert and I were glad to be able to listen to the wireless once more, and hear what was happening in the war. The reception shut in amongst those great mountains is poor, but we could hear well enough to follow most of the bulletins. You may think it would be wonderful to be cut off and not able to hear news for a few days, but actually it gives one an uncomfortable and worried feeling. Even if ones physical body cannot be helping, one feels that ones heart and mind ought t be somehow engaged in the struggle.
The morning of our departure was perfect; it was the cloudless weather which Herbert and I have almost come to look upon as our special priviledge. Oddly enough Lake Ada was not quite so beautiful as when we came, for a breeze ruffled the surface, and we could see neither reflections nor trout. All else was superb. There were no veilings of clouds on the mountains and the cliffs as there had been when we came, and we could see the sheer rock faces and the towering rugged summits against the deep blue sky. The return journey is the same as the outward one, but our luck was in and we had a second perfect day for the pass. The difference was beyond measure. Before, we could not spot the topography or sort out any points by the map. On the return, everything was clear. It was impressive to look up from Quinton Huts at the steep walls of the surrounding peaks, and the impressive barrier of the pass in front. In crow-flying distance, it was not far, but we had to take a huge zig and zag, followed by a number of smaller ones, to reach its summit. The great rocky mountain-side which I had thought so fine in the mist, was magnificent on this clear bright day, and it was a pleasure to take a couple of ten minute rests on the way up, and study the different peaks round us. We spent an hour or more on the top of the pass. On the one side we could look down into the valley of the Arthur River, from which we had come, and see the Quinton Huts apparantly close below us, though we had covered 5 ½ miles and climbed close on three thousand feet since we left them. On the other side we looked down the Clinton Canyon, shut in by steep mountain walls, and it was easy to pick out Pompolona Huts, our destination, 4 ½ miles away by the track. It was a delightful walk down, and we reached the Huts soon after three o’clock. Mrs. Rowan had a delicious tea ready for us, and since it was a fine sunny afternoon, we could take advantage of the shower bath with comfort. The weather turned bad on us during the night, and we woke to the sound of falling rain, which continued, lightly and intermittently all morning, as we covered then ten miles of easy walking to Glade House. Lunch there, and the trip down the Lake finished our excursion, which had been well worth the doing. The rain had stopped in the afternoon, and Herbert and I spent most of the afternoon up in the bows of the boat, where we got excellent views of the mountains. The clouds, luckily, were high, and did not obscure the hilltops, and the lights and shadows were rather good.
This is a quiet place. There is only the hotel and a few houses, mostly belonging to people who come here to fish, I understand. I am afraid it may be boreing for Herbert to have to spend a week here, for the weather tends to be cold and cloudy, but I am glad to have a little time to write letters, wash and mend clothes, and generally get abreast of the jobs I have to do, before we go to stay with Miss Scott in Dunedin next Monday.
We have to make the decision whether to leave N.Z. in the middle of May or whether to wait till the middle of June, for the American boats from Auckland only run to Sydney once a month. Seeing how Herbert feels the cold, I think we shall be wise to go in mid May, and seek warmer climes in Australia. As soon as the decision is taken we shall be sending you a cable.
This letter was begun on Sunday, but I could not finish it, and having been told by Miss O’Callaghan that the buses left here on Mondays, Weds, and Fridays, I did not hurry yesterday, thinking that it could not, in any event go till to-morrow. This morning I discovered that she had made a mistake, and though a bus does go on Mondays, the other days are Tues. Thurs and Sat. so it will be later than ever, and I fear I have missed the “Clipper” to Canada and my poor Romey will be a month without a letter. Here’s then end of the Paper, so I send my love to you all, and farewell till next week
LJT
From HPV to Annette
At Te Anau Hotel
March 24th 1941
My dear Annette.
In the hope that the heaviness deadening my wits these days would be removed, I have resumed the doing of physical jerks; but so far it has had none of the desired effect. I share your mother’s belief that liver is responsible for my feeling tired and depressed, as I have been ever since we were at the Hermitage, but what practical steps to take I don’t know. I have been more or less dieting for the past month and all the scrambling about rough hills that we have been doing ought to have kept my liver shaken up. Maybe it is not a sufficiently brisk form of exercise but when, out by myself, I swing along faster the result is fatigue. Yesterday, on such an excursion while your mother was typing, I exorcised the demon of depression by chanting ‘Om mani padme hum’ like a Buddhist for twenty minutes on end: it does have the effect of deadening the mind and thus keeping depression at arms’ length but as a spell it should do better than this. It is impossible to keep warm in hotels: draughts everywhere, except when rooms are so hot that to come out of them invites a chill. I am entering the competition for the title of worst traveller in the world. One consolation is that I was not a traveller on the bus that left here this morning. It contained most of the people whom we had met on the Milford trip, in addition to the usual complement of persons leaving the hotel; and in consequence it was crammed to suffocation, so overloaded that the only passenger likely to be able to breathe was a dog tied up on the roof.
Difficulty re passages to Australia give us a choice of staying in New Zealand well into the winter or leaving a fortnight earlier than planned: if we do the latter your mother is done out of visits to various beauty spots in the North Island: if the former she fears that I may go sick. For myself I do not mind missing any number of beauty spots but I should be sorry if she was not able to see what she has looked forward to. Her leg, from which she has removed the bandage seems all right now.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette No 10
Te Anau Hotel
New Zealand
March 25th 1941
My darling Annette
Of course I ought to be typing this, so that a copy can go by sea, but its such a lovely afternoon that I felt I could not stay indoors – so I have carried a chair across the road and am sitting at the edge of the Lake – Everytime I glance up, I see its blue waters and the mountains beyond, and there is a slight ripple that makes a sweet wee sound on the stones. Poor Dad is in one of his deep fits of depression and I have no way of distracting him here. He is labouriously reading “Mathematics for the Million” which makes him more gloomy still. It might be better to leave this beautiful, but very quiet place, where there is little to do, if you dont play tennis or fish, but there is no where much to go between here and Dunedin, where we are due on Monday, to stay with Miss Scott. I could easily be depressed myself, if I would allow myself to be so for I do feel constantly anxious about you all and profoundly dissatisfied that I am not doing any sort of a job. However, I realize that the last thing you and Richard and all the others would wish, is for us to let ourselves get gloomy, because of the dangers that everyone in England is running.
I have been trying to get some guidence on the pronounciation of Maori names, but few people – (none that I have met -) can tell you anything about the phonetics of the Maori vowels – The sum of common knowledge seems to be that everyone pronounces the Maori words wrong! It is said that the people who came in one of the famous Seven Canoes, settled in this part of the world – and there are legends about a Maori Princess, who appears in the mists on some mountains down to-wards Manapuri and of a white settler who fell in love with her and disappeared. Odd how this same story crops up all over the world! There are said to be traces of Maori houses and cooking places somewhere near – I must see if I can find out where they are –
I am so glad to think that Spring is coming to you in England. What will have happened in the War, I wonder, by the time this reaches you. Mr. Matsuoka seems to be twisting himself in knots in order to try to appear friendly to everyone. Its a pity the Japs are such a lying little race. Books written long ago, when we were supposed to be great friends, seem to remark that characteristic as being even more marked than it is in India.
Some day I must try to write down my impressions of the way socialism is working in this country – There are some good things about it, but it seems to exhibit all the weaknesses one feared. One outstanding drawback is that whatever concern Government takes over from private enterprise, it immediately ceases to pay. Its not easy to see exactly why, though one has vague feelings about all sorts of reasons. One is, presumably – that people do much more work and are much more careful when they are dealing with their own private property. Another is that Government control always seems to mean a multiplication of officials and demands for all manner of statements and returns, which take up a great part of the time of any office staff.
Its two weeks since letters came, so I begin to hope for anew supply – I wonder how your Russian studies progress – I regard them with amazement and admiration! I only hope you are not growing pale and thin with excess work and study – Richard says he has never seen you looking better – so I trust all is well –
One meets all sorts of odd types staying at good class hotels in New Zealand and its interesting to find what a poor educational background many of them have and how little they have read. A young man has been sitting at our table the last two days – looked about 22 – says he is 28 – and owns and runs his own dairy farm. He saved the money to buy the farm, by working for several years as a painter – He’s a good natural intelligence and was to talk to on affairs within his experience – but fairly soon got out of it, for he had done little reading – Here is tea-time – and the end of the paper – Good-bye my dear – and best love to you
Mother
From LJT to Romey
Te Anau Hotel,
New Zealand
March 25, 1941
My darling Romey,
It is distressing to find that I have missed the Clipper Mail. Had I managed to get the letter off by the bus on Monday (yesterday) morning it might just have caught it. I am duplicating this letter, and intend to post one copy by sea. If the Gods are kind, it may just catch a boat and reach you before the Clipper letters of a fortnight hence. I am also posting a bundle of advertisement pamphlets about various places in NZ to which we have been or to which we hope to go. I must apologize for the dreadfully bad carbon copy of the family letter. All the carbons are getting a little worn, but the one that did your copy, was far the worst. I hope you will be able to read it. I shall use new ones next week.
Poor Dad is going through one of his depressed fits just now, and it’s difficult to know what to do to get him out of it. This is a very quiet place, with not much to do, unless one fishes or plays tennis, and there is not even a shelf of books belonging to the hotel, so there is nothing to distract him. Unfortunately we are staying with Miss Scott in Dunedin, where we are due next Monday, and as I have already altered the date of our visit to her once, I can’t very well do so again. Between here and there I don’t think there is any place that would be more amusing for Dad than this. Of course, it’s not really possible to run away from despondency, but if one is busy doing things, one can perhaps forget it a little. I expect Dad is really getting a bit tired of doing no work. I feared he would, but on the other hand I felt sure that he would soon get ill again if he went back to India in the early Hot Weather. So far as scenery goes, this place is lovely, and we had a delicious walk along the edge of the Lake this evening. Dad went out a walk alone this morning. I had such a lot of writing to do, that I felt I must stay in. I did quite a big “wash” of all the clothes we wore out on trek, yesterday, and I have a good bit of mending to do. I really want to shorten a dress and coat that I think I shall be wearing a good bit in Dunedin, and which are rather long for present fashions, but I don’t know whether I shall manage it. Dad seems so lost if I cannot be with him all the time.
It’s about a fortnight since the last two letters come from you, so I hope for another soon. We have made up our minds to leave for Australia, by an American boat of the Manson line in the middle of May. If we don’t go then we shall have to wait till the middle of June, when it will be getting really cold in New Zealand, --- cold by our standards, that is to say, but not by your Canadian ones. When I saw how shriveled up Dad has been by the rather chilly winds that have been blowing the last two or three mornings, I thought it would be better to get him away to a warmer climate, before it becomes true winter here. I think it well be best if you will send your letters c/o the Bank of NZ, Auckland for any that will arrive here after the end of April, that will be any after this reaches you, as we shall be moving North from Wellington at the end of April, and it will save a day or two’s time if the Bank at Auckland, where the Clipper arrives, send them on. Those that have already gone to Wellington will be quite alright. They will be sent after us.
I’ve just been looking through the list of plants and flowers that was given you at the Kenora Summer Camp. I see many of the names are the same as those of English trees and wild flowers, --- that is the popular names. I wish they had given the botanical names in brackets so that one could have checked what things really are the same. When people say “why bother with all these scientific names”, here is the answer. You can’t rely on the popular names being exact, or properly used. In New Zealand, there are so-called Red Pines, White Pines and Black pines, some of them valuable timber trees, but they are unlike any of the European and American pines I have seen. I shall keep the paper careful and may have some fun with it when I get back to Calcutta, and I can go through it with my English wild flower book, and my American friend, Louise Rankin, who has a good botanical knowledge, and several American Botanical books. I imagine many of the Canadian plants and trees must be the same.
On this Milford Walk I had something the same experience that you had at the Summer Camp. Roughly speaking, I was the only one of the party who knew anything at all about the New Zealand plants, especially the Alpines. What few things the New Zealanders did put name to, were all adrift. The young guide who took us up to the top of the pass, was the most ignorant of the lot. Odd, how people can see lovely flowers day after day, as he must do, and not have the curiosity to find out what they are.
I have been given much pleasure the last two days by a Cairn Terrier who arrived in a car with an elderly couple, and a middle-aged man, whom I suppose to be their son. The first thing they did on arrival, was to take a collapsible kennel off the back of the car, and set it up under some big fir trees opposite, though some way away from my window. Next the water bowl and the food bowl and a big bone were arranged, and then the hound was fastened up, while his belongings went into the hotel. I was writing, and watched him, for a while he looked after them. Then he had a good sniff around. Then he gave a sort of resigned half yawn half moan, and set to on his dinner, followed by a good gnaw at the bone. Finally he lay down to sleep outside his kennel. In the morning he was out of his kennel before I got up, and lying gazing towards the gate through which he expected his people to come. Presently I saw his tail begin to wag like mad and he jumped to his feet. The old lady appeared, holding up an admonishing hand evidently forbidding him to jump up. He wagged and wagged all over, and had the greatest difficulty in restraining his desire to leap upon her till he was loosed, and then flinging restraint to the winds he gave a great leap up against her, and dashed off to meet the old gentleman who by this time was putting in an appearance. It is a simple little tale, but I enjoyed seeing it all. They seemed to love the dog so much, and he them.
I was pleased to hear that John Averil had been up to see Aunt, and I do hope he manages to stop in Winnipeg to see you. It would be fun for you both. I wonder what he will do now, --whether he will go straight into some sort of business or profession, or whether he will go through a University. If he grows up into as nice a man as he has been as a boy, he should be a charming person.
Dad was so pleased with your notes on the photos that he has referred to them a number of times, and has even suggested that I should annotate my books of photos in the same way, but Lor! What a job! I have just been looking through the photos again, and they really are very nice. Thank you again for them.
Would you give the enclosed letter to Cousin Susie?
Best love darling,
Mother
From LJT to Annette No 11
Te Anau Hotel. N.Z.
March 30th 1941.
My darling Annette,
You are truly a good daughter to write to us so regularly, for I am sure it must often be an effort, when you come back from work and feel throughly stale, and disinclined to make the effort to go back to your pen or your typewriter. We appreciate the letters greatly. I still have not made out a list of the various friends and co-workers you mention, but I must do it sometime. You always explain them in the beginning, but my memory lapses and I get them confused.
Dad I think intends to write to you about the illustrations in the Linguaphone book. He becomes greatly animated when he reads of your doings with the Russian records. Certainly in the French book “Trophie de Chasse ornent les murs” (I have no idea whether I have spelt the words right) I also have always been worried by the host and hostess sitting side by side at table. When we lunched with the Comte and Comtesse at St Malo and when I stayed with M. and Mdme Muret in Paris, I watched carefully to see if they would arrange themselves like that, but they took the two ends of the table just as we do. Dad thinks the conversation as given in the French books is quite unsuitable as a training for joining in Russian society. He says there should be such phrases as “Young Man! Have you hair upon your chest?”. That, of course, is a memory of a conversation with our Russian friend in Calcutta.
Thank goodness, Dad has come out of his fit of depression! Its trying when he gets into the slough of Despond like that. I suppose it must be even worse for him than it is for the people round him. I wonder why some temperaments sink into the blues like that now and again.
Its interesting to hear that you are learning fencing. Its wise of you to do some things to keep the body supple, for it not only looks so much nicer when the muscles are in good condition, but it feels so much better. I am glad to have got that feeling, which I had somewhat lost during the last months in India and while we were travelling on board ship, back again, with all this strenuous walking and climbing. I wonder whether I shall be able to keep it. Its difficult in Chinsurah.
It was amusing to me to hear the youth of twenty one, who came over the Milford Track with us, being discussed. The three women from Dunedin, who were all reasonably intelligent, thought, like me, that he was very callow and young and ill-informed for his age. The Little Aussie whom we all found so stupid and tiresome (We never saw her clean her teeth) thought him charming and said he was so “conversant”, meaning poor dear, that he was a good conversationalist! I could not help contrasting him with Richard at twenty-one and you and Gavin now, but of course its not a fair comparison, for he probably has grown up in some backwoods place and been to an indifferent school. Probably comes from a home where there are few books, and no-one reads anything but an occasional detective story. A young man sat at our table here for two days, who looked young, but told us he was twenty eight. He had lived a simple sort of life and had not read much, but he was evidently a shrewd observer. He had started as a painter, but hated it. Then he worked on a dairy farm, to learn the craft, and went back to house-painting for a few years, till he had saved enough to buy his own dairy farm. He has just enough cows and acerage that he can manage himself, for he says that is the way to make things pay now. Hired labour is so expensive, that it swallows up any profits. He has had his farm about eighteen months, and he probably has to go off to the army in a few months, but he thinks he has got a trustworthy man to carry on for him. He was a rough looking lad, in a way, and not the type you would be likely to meet at a good hotel in England, but I enjoyed talking to him. He was absolutely straightforward, and simple, and had tested what he talked about.
Now I must say good-bye, for I want to run off and hear the news, change, feed and afterwards, pack for to-morrow’s flit to Dunedin.
Best love, dear daughter.
Mother
Family letter from LJT No 11
Te Anau Hotel. N.Z.
March 30th 1941.
My Dears,
Its strange how often when I say that it is some time since letters came from England, they turn up a few hours after my mail has been posted. That happened this week, when I received such a splendid budget on WED; evening. They included letters varying as much in date as one from Arla written on Dec 13th, and one from Frank Kingdon Ward dated Feb 3rd, which came by sea mail, and two weeks letters from Highways by Air mail, dated Jan 3rd and Jan 31st, - - so you see how erratic the mails are. Of course the wonderful thing is that we get them at all, and indeed I am grateful that we do. May I send my thanks via this letter to Margaret and to Peggy and to Arla for very interesting letters.
In concert with the rest of the world, we have been thrilled this week by the coup d’etat in Yugoslavia, and by the fall of (?)Keren and of (?)Harer. I can understand crowds going out to wave flags and cheer when they hear good news, for I felt I wanted to do something of the sort when thos three excellent bits of news reached us over the (?)8.45 broadcast from Daventry. (It is convenient here. With N.Z. Summer Time we are precisely twelve hours ahead of Greenwich, so arithmetic for getting the time of the British broadcasts is too easy)
At the beginning of this week, I feared our stay here was going to turn out badly. I had so many things I had to do, and Herbert was bored. For the first few days of the week, there were scarcely any other people in the hotel, and the one or two who did turn up, were not interesting. It was stormy weather with rather cold winds, which turned to two days heavy rain on Wednesday and Thursday, during which time it was very cold and Herbert felt extremely miserable. However when the rain stopped after tea on Thursday, we hurried out for a walk, and found, as the clouds cleared off that all the mountain tops were covered with snow, and looked lovely – its marvellous how snow throws up a peak, and gives extra beauty to a landscape. By the middle of the week several nice people had arrived, and there was some company for Herbert to talk with. Amongst the arrivals were a nice couple from the Malay States. Mr Cook is a rubber-planter. They had their own car with them, and kindly invited us to go down to Lake Manapuri with them on Friday morning. It was a day of lovely cloud effects, sunshine and shadow, making the already beautiful lakes and hills more charming than ever. It was at Manapuri that we had originally intended to spend this week, but we heard that the family who run the accomodation house there were so eccentric that we feared to risk settling ourselves there. On Friday we thought we had better get in touch with the Murrell family, as our Dunedin friends Miss Scott and Dr and Mrs Holloway had all recommended us to go there. We met one of the brothers in the garden, and he and Herbert immediately begin talking humus and manures, almost with passion, so that at last Mrs Cook and I left them, and Mr Cook who was taking colour photos of the garden, and went down to the lake through the beech woods. There on a little jetty, we found another brother, fishing, and we had a long talk with him. Both brothers were interesting and not only have they studied all the wild things that come into their every-day life, but they have read quite a lot too. In some ways I would like to have spent a few days there, for they are the people, and about the only ones, who know about this little-explored part of the world. As Mrs Cook and I were strolling back to-wards the house, we met the men coming down, but we went on and sat down in the car. In a few seconds, Miss Morrell appeared and asked us to come in and have morning tea. You never saw such a spread as she put before us, scones and three or four sorts of cake. I dont really like eating in the middle of the morning, but I felt it might offend her if I took nothing but a cup of tea. While Herbert was down at the lake side, he had some amusing adventure with a white cockatoo, belonging to the family. This bird follows the brothers through the woods, and is apparantly a great character. Both the Morrell brothers looked the part of backwoodsmen. Both are tall and fair, just going grey. They wear their curly hair very long, and dont seem to shave frequently! They wore old flannel trousers tucked into rubber boots, and well worn jerseys, but they spoke excellently and their manners were good. The one interested in humus was still talking to us with his head in the car window, when Mr Cook at last started up the engine. I would greatly have liked to stay and have more talk with them.
Yesterday was a most glorious day, and taking a lift on the bus for four miles down the Manapuri road, we cut down a grass track to the river which flows out of the south end of Lake Te Anu and links it with Lake Manapuri. All the country round here is glacier carved, and their are great flat topped ridges which long ages ago were morains. One of these runs parallel to the river, its crest about 60 or 80 feet above water-level, for several miles. Here and there it has been cut through by storm-water streams. We followed the edge of the ridge, clambering down and crossing the stream beds when necessary. There was a sort of sheep track most of the way. The country is stony, as you would expect old morains to be, and it is thinly covered with bracken and coarse grass, with a sprinkling of manuka bushes, thickening now and again in quite dense groves. On our left hand we looked down the steep bank to the clear river, and across it to the forest-covered slopes of the mountains which rose from its other bank. All round us, in other directions we saw more distant mountains, the higher ones all snow topped. Suddenly I heard a noise just ahead of me, and up out of the bracken sprang a red-deer. He was a fine stag with a good head of antlers. He was not more than twenty yards from us. We kept perfectly still, and he stood for some seconds gazing at us, then he gave a snort and bounded away for a few paces, turning to gaze again. This time he stood so long that we got tired, and decided to walk on. Off he went with the most splendid bound but to our amazement about five minutes later he appeared behind a manuka bush fifty yards or so ahead, and watched us. This performance was repeated for a mile or so, and it was quite comical to see the way he would take cover behind a most inadequate bush and peer round it at us, like a child playing hide-and-seek. Our walk brought us in a couple of hours to the foot of the lake, and another hour saw us home in time for lunch, after a delightful morning. To-day the weather is not so good, but we have had a nice walk. The Cooks, who have gone up north in their car, gave us a lift about three miles along the road, and we made a circuit over low bracken covered hills and finally came back to a river which runs into our lake and home across the moor-land. To-morrow we go to Dunedin, and I think I shall be wise only to write this short letter to-day and post it when we get there. The wet days earlier in this week were rather a blessing to me, for I wrote a mass of letters and did a great deal of sowing, including shortening a dress and coat, that were far too long for present fashions, but they were a bit boreing for Herbert. This is the first of the many government run hotels we have been in in N.Z, and it is certainly the worst managed. There are many things about it we dont like, and it seems to me to reveal the weakness of concerns managed from a distant authority, which never sees them at close range. You have probably wondered why I have expressed so few opinions about the government and politics out here. There are two reasons. One is that I think one should stay some while in a country, meet as many sorts of people as possible, and hear their views, before one forms many judgements. The second reason is that I am told Government object to discussion or criticism of their methods, and that letters that do these things are apt to get heavily censored. Later you will probably hear our impressions.
During the past week the weather has become definitely autumnal, and I think we shall need warm clothes from now on. For the sake of any of you have not already heard, we leave N.Z. on May 12th, and our address till the 5th of June will be c/o The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Sydney; and till the beginning of August ditto. Brisbane. After that c/o Brindlay and Co. Calcutta.
Our best love to you all
LJT