Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/318

110 valley, which I suspect leads through to the Mavora Lakes and is the route which has been frequently traversed by the Maoris, between the Wakatipu, Kaduku, and Riverton.

After two hours' walk along the ridge next morning in a southeast direction, we descended into the Greenstone Valley and reached my furthest camp of last April, and by nightfall got several miles below the point where we, on that occasion, left our horses. The descent of the valley of the west, or McKellar's branch of the Greenstone River, is very gentle and uniform, and the total fall from the McKellar Lake at the summit level to the Wakatipu Lake, a distance of about 22 miles, cannot exceed 400 feet.

As the lower part of the Greenstone River, for a few miles above where it receives the eastern or Caples branch, is obstructed by bush, I again followed McKellar and Gun's track by the Mararoa River, and next day reached the out-hut of Mr. Von Tunzelmann, situated on the Riverton track, 10 miles south-west of the Wakatipu Lake. The total distance from the Kakapo Lake to the Wakatipu Lake by the route I followed is 90 miles. But if we had followed straight up the Kakapo Valley, and followed down the Greenstone River to where it enters the Lake, which would be the proper line to cut a track, the distance would be less than 50 miles.

On the 4th October, I reached Queenstown, and from there sent back two men to clear the track I had "blazed" to the Kakapo Lake, and then return to the height of land and there await ray arrival from Dunedin. Accompanied by Mr. Hutchinson I then proceeded by the ordinary route to the Dunstan, and thence by coach to this place, and had the pleasure of reporting my arrival to his Honour on the 7th instant.

I may state in conclusion that there will be no difficulty in constructing a road at a moderate expense between the Wakatipu and Kakapo Lakes that will pass over a summit-level of the mountains that does not involve a rise of more than 400 feet above the Wakatipu Lake, which, being elevated 1000 feet above the sea, consequently makes the western descent equal to 1400 feet, 400 of which may be accomplished with an imperceptible gradient.

—The Secretary of the Gold Fields has placed in my hands a sketch-map of the country between the Kakapo and Wakatipu Lakes, which in all the main features is very correct, made by a miner named Caples, who states that he reached the sea at Martin's Bay in March last. From the statement which accompanies this sketch, Mr. Caples appears to have kept on the mountain-ridges, and to have followed routes that were unnecessarily difficult, and never to have entertained the idea that an easily practicable one existed; he, however, displayed extraordinary