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On one occasion the rope which pulled the cage on one side broke, and the passengers were dangling by the other over the roaring torrent until assistance came.
When we landed at the opposite side we entered a bush tramcar drawn by one horse, a very primitive arrangement, on rails of wood. After travelling some distance we got into another coach which was full of Chinamen, and reached Greymouth in the evening, very glad to get once more into a comfortable hotel. The next morning we started by tram again. We had it all to ourselves, and enjoyed the quiet, smooth, plodding along through a narrow lane in the bush, always the same avenue stretching away in the distance, whether we looked behind or ahead, there were tall forest trees, and masses of creepers, ferns, mosses, lichens, and flowers, which I longed to gather, but we could not stop. Then we went on by coach again, driven by a young gentleman, son of a military man, who entertained us by his experiences till we reached Hokitika, where we stayed four days waiting for the coach to take us across the mountains to Christchurch. It rained of course, most of the time; it always does at Hokitika. But one clear lovely morning we had a splended view of Mount Cook, and the Southern Alps covered with snow in the far distance, standing out hard and clear against the sky, touched with pink and yellow by the rising sun.
We thought we had secured the lower box seats for the journey to the Otira Gorge, but found ourselves mistaken, and had to be content with the upper ones on the top of the coach, high up, with our feet even above the driver's head, and the horses in the depths below, with nothing to prevent us from slipping off. After one long very steep hill, down which we went full gallop, I gave in and went inside, until a lady down below kindly exchanged seats with me. The first part of the journey was comparatively easy, with a good road between wooded mountains, already becoming red with the Rata flowers (Metrosideros lucida), and over streams, some not bridged, down we went at full speed, and up the other side, and woe betide us if the springs broke. About 8 a.m., we came to a small mining village in the midst of the forest, where we had breakfast. We drove through beautiful scenery till we reached the Taipo, or Devil River, where we all had to leave the coach and cross by a long narrow swinging bridge, which was rather a trial, as it oscillated so much. We got into the coach again on the other side, and to judge by the way the luggage was mixed up in the inside, it was well we had some other means of crossing.
About 2 p.m., we arrived at the Otira Gorge, where there is a small inn by the side of the river, which is very broad there, or rather the bed of it is, as there are two channels, the rest is all stones. We dined here, and the other people went on by the coach, but my niece and I stayed till the following one, four days later, in order to obtain the flowers on Arthur's Pass, which is an excellent place for Alpine plants. I prospected the river bed and side that afternoon, and found
