EAST COAST TOUR

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 128, 23 February 1921, Page 8

EAST COAST TOUR

PRINCIPAL NEEDS OF DISTRICT GOOD ROADS AND STRONG BRIDGES (By Telaaranh— Special Correanondent.) Gisborne, February 22. The Parliamentary touring party today arrived back in Gisborne from their trip to what may be correctly termed the “roadless north” of this part of the island. On the northward journey the distances covered were so great that it was difficult to retain in the memory the exact geography of the region, and to keep impi-essions to the right proportions. It was a blur of miles. The Dominion trip, however, enabled everyone to crystallise his ideas, and to-day the Parliamentarians are in a much better position from the point of view of knowledge. The great outstanding need of the district is a good road. Part of the trouble to-day is that new portions, which have been formed to obviate the use of sections of the beach, are unmetalled, and so become quagmires in wet weather. The worst positions, however, are where the abnormal floods of 1915 and 1916 carried away bridges, and so scoured the banks of the streams that large portions of sound roadway were washed away. Formerly the road through the Waiapu County was a good onp; now it has so many gaps and bad places that it is almost impassable in very wet weather. These unfortunate experiences of the i past, which destroyed thousands upon thousands of pounds worth of roadway, have now made it necessary for the authorities to find new road levels. This is not an easy matter, owing to the loose nature of the country. With the heavy rains experienced along this coast the slopes slip very readily, and this fact presents vast engineering problems. In many places willows have been planted over sliding slopes (which threaten to or already have obliterated roads) to make firm the ground. One new roadlino not yet formed has already been planted with willows. Much of the country might be described as an engineer's nightmare. Then there is the matter of bridges. H is a. sad thing to see the approaches to bridges which have vanished, and crude new tracks leading over the river beds to nasty fords. Two large bridges are in the course of construction, one over the Uawa River, and the other over the Waiapu. These necessarily must be much stronger than the former structures. The great flood of 1916 turned the Waiapu into a rushing sheet of water a mile wide. That flood was abnormal, but there seems no doubt that the rivers flood more quickly now than they did when catchment areas were covered with scrub and fern. There being nothing to hold t'no water, it rushes down the creeks, and before one has time to realise it the rivers are rising rapidly. The Waiapu has been known to rise nine feet in two hours. Quality of the Land. As to the quality of the land in this little-known region, the visitors have constantly expressed their amazement. They had never imagined that behind the hills which border the coast there was such an area of it. It is not a mere strip. It stretches inland at Gisborne a distance of 50 miles and the line of the standing bush gradually gets closer and closer until it finally comes near the coast at Hicks Bay. Some of the southerners have said that the future of this country lies in close settlement and dairying. There certainly are rich flats and snug valleys fitted for dairying, but. the local view is that the bulk of the country will always have to be held in fairly large blocks by graziers. They admit, of course, that the size of many of the sheep-runs will be reduced as the year's go by. As to breaking in the country not yet tackled, it appears clear that this work cannot be done by poor men or in small areas. The mere felling of bush and scrub does not clear the land, which is prevented from going back to its original state only by judicious stocking. After the solving of grass on the “burns,” fern and manuka immediately appear, and for two years ut least the stocking has to be arranged do that the young fern shoots are eaten and the young scrub crushed. In this way the country is made what is called clean.. For a man to attempt this country without sufficient resources to enable him to put on the necessary stock at the right moment is regarded by experts as hopeless. Railway Works.

The touring M.P.’s stay to-night in Gisborne, and to-morrow leave for Wairoa. This afternoon they were taken, to the railhead of the line leading south. This is now 17 miles from Gisborne, and it represents some 10 years’ work. A steam navvy was seen at work on a cutting. It is now shifting twelve times the amount of spoil that can be shifted by a gang of eight men. On the which runs east through the rich Gisborne flats, which have an area of about 100 square miles, only Public Works trains are being run several days a week. These carry passengers nnd goods. In welcoming the party at a siding at Ngatapa, Mr. C. E. Armstrong, district engineer, said that the country now beiii" attacked was inclined to slip, but he° indicated that this was not causing any anxiety. Tho main, job of the future was the tunnel through the hills which form the division between tins country and the valleys of the south. This would lie driven through hard country. Mr. C. Matthews, of the Cook County Council, also welcomed the party. . Inter the travellers were entertained at Mr. W. D. Lysnar’s residence, and in the evening they were' the guests of the townspeople at a social gathering.