COACHES STOPPED.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18480, 7 September 1925, Page 14

COACHES STOPPED.

... RACK TO PACK-HORSES. (srßciAu; to "th« p*ess.") GISBORNE, September o. Seldom if ever before in the history of this district "have such frightful conditions prevailed ,on the East Coast road as now exist/ and from to-day onwards all coaches will be stopped. •No freight will be carried, and mails will be packed; Passengers will be required to rjde on horseback from Whangaro to Tolaga Ray. ' For weeks 'past. iahe v x-oaches have daily been slogging. through seas of mud, and tbe journey, to; Tolaga Bay has taken close on twelve hours eaqh day during the past week. Conditions . have now reached a stage when a continuance of the. coaching service .is absolutely impossible, and the Gisborne motor service has decided'to withdraw all coaches and resort-to horses. Practicallv every day the horses have been knocking up ajnd the harness arid coachinc gear has suffered severely. Coaches, have beew stuck in the mud for hours'at,a stretch,", and'when tbe horses have finally-pulled -them out, they havo been absolutely done, and fresh horses have had to be obtained from the depot. The road lias been growing gradually worse, but" the coaches, by leaving the road and taking a cross-countrv course through some of the paddocks, have tried to keep the service going. . The few dry days now experience if have .caused the road to .commence drying and the coaches have sunk axle deep in a mass of mud which resembles half set concrete For days past, the carriages of the coaches have been dragging along the mud on Loisels Flat, an 3 every few yards, the horses have-had "to be spelled, so heavy has the pulling been. Even on the down hiir grades the pulling has been so hearv that the horses have had continually to be spelled. and on Thursday-the coach which lett W bangarei at 8 a.m. did noti arrive at Tolaga Bay, a distance of 20 miles, until 0 o'clock in the eveninc. Yesterday conditions were even worse and the passengers who left Tolasra Bav at 7 o'clock in the morning, did no t ar _ rive in Gisborne.until 10 o'clock in the evening.