FROM GISBORNE TO OPOTIKI

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 48, 26 February 1901, Page 4

FROM GISBORNE TO OPOTIKI

(By a Travelling Correspondent.) SHORTEST ROUTE.

The shortest route by land from Gisborne to Opotiki is, as most people know, via Te Karakn and the Motu. By this route the traveller can get through easily in from three to four days, according to the stages he makes, and it is possible on a first-class horse to do the journey in two days, the distance through being about 120 miles. To do the journey comfortably, however, one really wants to make Poututu accommodation house the first day, the Motu the second, and then he has still remaining a distance of about 55 miles to cover before he gets to Opotiki, and as there is no accommodation house on this road, he must either push right through or get one of the farmers on the | way to put him up. The road the whole way through is at present in splendid order, and one could drive in a buggy as ' far as the Motu hotel. SAWMILL AND TIMBER. A sawmill is just starting in the Motu. It is a great pity the Government do not push on with the railway line into this district, as there is undoubtedly a vast amount of valuable timber in the bushes about here. ON THE WAY TO OPOTIKI. Leaving the Motu hotel and proceeding on my way to Opotiki, I was simply astonished at the vast stretch of fertile bush country through which one is obliged to travel. Mile after mile for a good thirty miles the traveller follows a 4£t bridle track, in splendid order, and with an excellent—for the most part almost level grade—winding its way through heavy bush, which stretches away on either side as far as the eye can reach, over more or less rough, mountainous country. The ride through this bush is delightfully cool upon the hottest summer day, but I should say very cold in winter. The grade is so good that one could, if he wished, canter the whole distance, but to secure the grade, and owing to the narrowness of the country, there are innumerable sharp turns and bends all along the track. SETTLERS BY THE WAY. After travelling the before-mentioned thirty miles or so, one comes at last to Mr Armstrong’s homestead, the first met with after entering the bush, and a little further I on Mr Keid has taken up a property in this bush. Mr Armstrong, with true colonial pluck, went back into the bush, and took up this property some eight years 1 ago, and has now fallen and grassed, a considerable portion. Mr Armstrong in- ' forms mo that by growing turnips and sending liis fa't stock to Auckland at the , time of year when they fetch the hightest price, he is able to nett one pound sterling i per annum for every acre he has in grass. Opotiki farmers sometimes get a pound per head for their fat wethers in Aucki land, and Auckland buyers freeze them after that and make another profit out of them. How does that sound to Poverty ; Bay sheep farmers, who have complained to mo that they cannot nett 6s per head from their sheep ? LINE OP RAILWAY. After leaving the clearing made by Messrs Armstrong and Beid we again reenter the bush, and follow the same sort of bridle track for some six or seven miles, when we emerge from the bush and reach the dray road, which we follow from here into Opotiki. It is when we enter this last piece of bush that we become conscious of the serious engineering difficulties in the way of running a railway through this country. It appears to me that the cost of constructing a railway line along this route would be enormous. Though once constructed it would open up a vast area of fertile, though rough bush country. Prom Armstrong’s to the end of the bush the road is cut the best part of the way through a loose kind of stone, a lot of it containing a good deal of iron. The sides of the hills along which the road runs in many places are next door to precipitous, and the road winds in and out round numbers of small spurs, so that if the railway followed the route of the present bridle track it would mean constant cutting and tunnelling through this loose rock to' get a straight road through these spurs. POSSIBILITIES OP WEALTH. But if a railway could be put through, what a scope of country it would tap! Supposing the bush between the Motu - and Opotiki to be 30 miles across as the crow flies, and the same distance from east to west, this would give us an area of 576,000 acres. Supposing this land, which is all more or less fertile, could be made to yield, when laid down in grass, 10s per acre per annum, this would mean an additional annual income to Poverty Bay of about .£250,000, sufficient to keep comfortably at least a thousand families on the land, and a great many more in supplying them with what they required. THE WEEKLY MAIL. There is now a mail carried once a week via the Motu, between Opotiki and Gisborne. Settlers in the Motu want to know how it is that the postal authorities cannot see their way to carry six copies of a daily newspaper, if all bound up together, for the same postage as one weekly paper, which perhaps weighs more than the six daily papers put together.