Highland Remnants and the Modern Climber

IN 1906-1908 intensive field work was done by Geological Surveyors in Westland and the area between the Taipo and Big Wanganui Rivers was fully covered. There remained the remote Perth and Adams Valleys to be traversed. This work fell in recent years to young members of the Canter­bury Mountaineering Club who made several ex­peditions in country involving the roughest of ice, river, and gorge travel. In South-Western Otago, New Zealand Alpine Club parties have conscienti­ously set out to fill in the blanks left by Douglas. They have combed the Dart-Arawhata Watershed with every success. Both the Canterbury and Otago mountaineers have private maps that are considerably ahead of existing Survey records.

What remains? To my knowledge, only one major New Zealand river is untraversed at the time of writing the Poerua, in Westland. No doubt odd feeders of the big rivers beyond the Otago Divide have not yet been touched, and there may be areas in the jungle behind Manapouri that have not been reached by the hunters of wapiti or deer. With these exceptions it can be said that New Zealand is fully explored. Corners of the Urewera country will remain the resting places of Maoris, and yet-virgin tops of the Southern Alps will be the Mecca of mountain men. But a new eye is at work. With modern photo­graphic methods adapted to aerial surveys, the aeroplane can, in a few hours, banish any obscurity that blankets a region.

The cycle has been run; the Maoris, the navigators, the Europeans, and the machine have wrestled with the secrets of New Zealand. While minor topographical discoveries have yet to be made, the greater part of the work has been ac­complished, and New Zealand is no longer a mysterious morsel in an unknown Southern Continent.