t was sheepmen who first explored the mountain wilderness of the Southern Alps in their search for grazing lands beyond the Canterbury Plains, but gold prospectors opened it up. Gold was first discovered on the West Coast in 1863 and Pakeha (Europeans), attracted by the prospects of a quick fortune, trekked in their droves from Canterbury through the rugged mountains -

The first Pakeha, like the Maori before them, crossed the Alps by way of Harper Pass but the constant traffic of gold-seekers and stock turned the track into a muddy, boulder-strewn mess and finding an alternative route became imperative.

In Feb 1864 Arthur Dobson and his brother Edward rode up the Waimakariri River and up the Bealey Valley. From there they travelled across the bed of an old glacier to the West Coast. Because of the steep descent on the western side Arthur was not too enthusiastic about the route, declaring that it was difficult, if not impossible. His father, who was Canterbury's regional engineer, decided otherwise, and 1000 men were put to work building a road. Using rudimentary tools and labouring through the harsh alpine winter, they built the road to the West Coast in less than a year. The result today is the highest and most spectacular of our alpine highways.

Around Arthur's Pass itself there is much to see. The Bealey Valley is rich in birdlife below and above the tree-line. This includes kereru, kea and kakariki and the great spotted kiwi, or roa. Most evenings they can be heard calling up the valley. If you are lucky you may see the rock wren bobbing around among the boulders, and blue duck in the streams.

For flower fanciers the best time to visit Arthur's Pass is between November and late February. There are several specialities in the area which the park rangers will advise you of and every few years the Otira Gorge is ablaze with flowering rata.

When driving from Westland to Christchurch on State Highway 73 one passes by way of Flock Hill then Castle Hill to Porters Pass, the final pass on the Christchurch-West Coast road. Although Arthur's Pass is better known, Porters Pass at 945.5 metres is actually 14 metres higher.

From the pass great views can be had over the Canterbury Plains, a panorama which gold-seekers returning from the West Coast must have gazed upon with considerable relief. Today Porters Pass is a popular ski resort as it is within relatively easy driving of Christchurch. Nearby Lake Lyndon is popular, too, with skaters, being one of the few South Island lakes which freeze over.

The lakes in the Southern Alps, however, are mostly too deep and cold to support much birdlife and those birds that are here frequent sheltered, shallow areas. In summer a number of birds come here to nest, including the nattily dressed South Island pied oystercatchers, with their distinctive black and white plumage nicely set off by a scarlet beak. Although usually found nesting along riverbeds on the plains, they not infrequently use the lake shore. Also nesting at the lakeside is the banded dotterel. This bird was called tuturiwhatu by the Maori because of the trilling call of the male when courting.

Across Lake Lyndon to the west Mount Lyndon can be seen and to the north-east rise the rugged Torlesse Ranges. These were explored by the surveyor Charles Torlesse in 1849 who aptly described them as a 'romantic and chaotic mass of mountains'. Returning from this trip, Torlesse and his Maori guide ran out of food and had to choose between eating their donkey or their dog. They tossed a coin and the dog lost but, luckily for the dog, a weka came along and was promptly cooked instead.

This area was the realm of the buff weka which was regularly snared by the Maori when crossing the Alps seeking greenstone on the West Coast. However, weka learned to avoid the snares, giving rise to the Maon proverb: 'Makere te weka i te mahanga e hoki ano?' for which a rough translation would be 'once bitten, twice shy'.

The buff weka disappeared in the 1920s, perhaps for the same reasons which caused it to die out in the north - predators and possibly diseases transmuted by poultry. Fortunately for the weka, if not for the local birds, it had been introduced earlier to the Chatham Islands from where attempts, so far unsuccessful, have been made to re-introduce it to the Arthur’s Pass National Park.