Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/23

 CHAPTER II

THE ROUTE TO THE MOUNT COOK DISTRICT

Timaru on the east coast the traveller may comfortably reach the glaciers of Aorangi in a two days' journey.

Leaving Timaru by an evening train, Fairlie Creek (the present terminus of the railway line) is reached, where the night is spent. Two days' coaching then are required to cross over Burke's Pass into the great Mackenzie plains, across this great ancient glacier bed, past Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki, over the rivers of the same names, and up the valley of the Tasman River to a comfortable hostelry called 'The Hermitage,' nestling right under the shadow of that wonderful pile of ice-clad mountain glory, Mount Sefton.

Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki may both be aptly compared in one way to the Lake of Geneva, in that they are of glacier origin, and purify the rivers which now flow from the present glaciers, parting with their waters again through channels cut in the ancient terminal moraines which dam their respective southern shores.

They are both beautiful, each in its own way—