26 o 
DUNEDIN 
CHAP. 
here, but did not realise it before. Next morning I fed 
them in the garden, and one rested for a minute on my 
shoulder. In the thick tussocky grass and the water 
pools the wekas (water-hens) are even more tame. 
Here they walk about with the most important-looking 
air, bobbing their tails up and down. Nothing in the 
way of food is safe from them, and if you are ever un- 
wise enough to leave a lunch basket near them, you will 
find that everything has been sampled on your return. 
The days went by much too quickly here. The 
lakes and rivers, they say, teem with trout, but there 
was no time to fish. I could not loiter on the way, 
and all too soon I was back. The Remarkables were 
all bathed in a soft, silver blue light, wrapping every- 
thing in a thin veil of mystery, and the moon suddenly 
rose up from behind them, flooding everything in her 
soft, mellow light, and dancing reflections in long 
rippling waves of light on the water. It was a most 
lovely scene. 
Next morning I took my last drive along Skipper’s 
Road, one that no one whose head will stand it should 
miss, for there is no road like it in New Zealand. 
Even on foot going over these mountain passes, one 
would require to have a great deal of the rock-wallaby 
element in his nature to carry him with any safety over 
them. Leaving the town, the road takes you along a 
narrow valley between high mountain ranges, then over 
the bridge of the Shotover River, which below rushes 
between high ridges of rock ; and in the long sandy 
reaches the heavy gold dredges are at work, as also, further 
on, in a huge natural basin formed by ages of river 
workings. A primitive town of tent, and wattle and 
dab houses has grown up round its shores. Here the 
zigzag road mounts till the saddle is reached at 3000 
feet. 
