The route we followed was for the first 150 miles the same as that described in our journey to the diggings. We moved much faster and in six days reached Miller and Gooche's, the former of whom was now on the station. McGregor Miller was one of the finest men I had seen, a Hercules in strength and build, and as jolly and hospitable as he was a perfect gentleman. We stayed two days with him. The station as well as the country presented very different aspects to what they did on my previous visit. A new house had been built and furnished comfortably, and the surroundings were fast being improved under the guiding hand of the "boss," who worked with his men as one of themselves, and easy-going fox-hunting squire as he was in the old country a couple of years since, he could handle an axe, spade, or shovel with the best of them. On the first day's ride from here we went over the Lindis Pass, the scene of so much hardship to us diggers, and on to McClean's station, where we received a hearty Scotch welcome and an excellent dinner, and sat up late with the old gentleman discussing whiskey toddy and chatting over old times. The Moorhouses and McCleans were old friends, and had been together in Australia on the diggings many years before. He was not, I recollect, much impressed with Moorhouse's speculation, but as he had a run at the south of the Wanaka and a homestead there he arranged for our reception and for a boat to take us a portion of the voyage up the lake. The next day's ride lay through the scene of the late Lindis diggings, but not a vestige of the encampments remained beyond the ruins of the hut walls and excavations. The gold diggings proved a failure, and within a few months of our leaving them they were deserted. They were, I understood, subsequently re-opened by a company who employed machinery with more success than was possible with manual labour. The country beyond this was bleak and uninteresting, until the following evening when we arrived at the Molyneux river, where it flowed out of the south end of the Wanaka Lake. We were here again in the midst of mountains and very near to the great Alpine range which towered above us and which, although it was midsummer, was capped in snow. Upon the opposite side of the river, and on the shore of the lake, stood the very fine group of station buildings erected by Mr. Robert McClean. His people having been advised of our coming, a boat was sent across, behind which we swam our horses, and were soon comfortably fixed for the night and hospitably received by the overseer, who had a boat ready to convey us the following day twenty-five miles up the lake to another station formed there. The Molyneux struck me as being the clearest water I had ever seen; it was quite colourless, and though of great depth, even here at its source, the bottom was distinctly visible from the boat. It was a grand river, large and deep enough to float a small steamer.