A TOURISTS’ PARADISE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3205, 28 April 1911, Page 2

A TOURISTS’ PARADISE.

POPULARITY OF DOMINION.

INCREASE IN VISITORS.

‘‘Generally speaking the season has been easily a record one,’’ said the Minister in charge of the Tourist Department (the Hon. T. in an interview the other day. Tourists, he added, had come to New Zealand from the United Kingdom, America and Australia, and. some of the parties had made extended visits. The Minister specially instanced the Christchurch office as a centre where good business had been done, and expressed the hope that other centres would do as weld in future. The visitors were delighted with the simplicity of the system under which the Department gets into contact with the tourist, arranges a tour for him, and hands him a book of tickets, which franks him lrom the beginning to the end of his journey, whether it be train, boat, motor car, or any other means of conveyance. The inauguration of the scheme necessitated a good deal of planning, but it is now in excellent working order, and has been greatly appreciated by those who have taken advantage of it.

The Minister speaks enthusiastically of the newly-discovered caves at Waitomo. They are wonders, lie says, which cannot easily be imagined, and are regarded as a rich asset to the Dominion. Before their discovery Waitomo House was full, and now the extra accommodation provided is not sufficient to meet the requirements of tho travelling public. At Mount Cook the foundations of a new mountain house have been put in, and the work of erection is well under way. Tho track giving connection across the Southern Alps, between the East and West Coast systems of roading, is progressing steadily, and is now cut from tho Hermitage to the saddle above the Copeland River on the west. A hut has been erected six miles up from the Hermitage towards this divide, and light and inexpensive bridges have been thrown across the streams.