COACH DRIVER'S TALES OF TAUPO ROAD

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 72, 17 December 1937, Page 26 (Supplement)

COACH DRIVER'S TALES OF TAUPO ROAD

ARDUOUS EXPERIENCES

Prospect of Excitemeiit Always Round ihe Next Bend SCENERY MORE APPRECIATED Travelling1 the Taupo road 40 years ago was often an experience rich in exciting incident. To get some inlormation "straight from the horse's mouth," so to speak, the writer had a talk with Mr. Karry Hayhow, who drove wagons and eoaches over the route for 13 years, spending a good deal of ihat time in mail and passenger transport. The driving urge is still strong in Mr. Hayhow. . .He runs a taxi in Napier now, but he found time to relate someveryinterestingpersonal experiences he had had during his coaching days.

fYNE of his iirst observations was that he considered that, thougli the trip was slower in the old days, it ofl'ered more from the tourists' point of view. because they had more time to appreciate the scenery, and had no cause to be scared by the spced. Well, maybe one would not 'be scared by the speed of a coach, but one cannot help wondering just how well swaying about on the to-ps of precipes in a veliicle witli a liigh tentre of gravity and hitched to an excitable team of liorses would compare from tlie safety point of view with the modern service car in the mind of the modern traveller. However, travelling in those days must have had a fascinating tang of the unknown to it. There was always the prospect of some exciting occurrence round the bend. For instance, when a flood washed tlie Mohaka river bridge away, passengers and haggage had to be taken across the river bv canoe, while the coachman unhitched his team and swam the horses across to another coach which would have been left parked on the other side. Tliis performance was the regular thing until the new bridge was built. Snow a Handicap.

Heavy falls of snow were often a serious liandicap, and Mr. Hayhow relates how, on one occasion. his coach was snowed in near Te Haroto on the ascent of the Turangakuma hi'.l and its occupants had to ride the liorses baclt dowu to the Mohaka river bed, where tliey spent the night under very chillv circumstances. but clear of the deep snow. At times, he said, he has encountered snow five to six feet deep. Inenviable indeed was the veteran coach driver's experience in passing over a slip on the Turangakuma. The. fall had occurred right on a bend. with a deep drop on one side and the high bank on the other, When the coach came to the place, men were working there, but there was still a lot of loose. wet material on the road. Ropes were tied to the coach, and the roadmen. standing on the bank above, held it on

tlie road by tliis means till the danger point was passed. Ordinarily the coach jouniey was arduous enougli, for both passe/igers and driver, but when the Tarawera Hotel was burned down and this place could not be used for the overnight break for a period' of 12 montlis oi- so, it meant a very liard second day's travelling. Leaving Napier in the early afternoon of the first day, the coach would proceed to Te Fohue. where the travellers staved overnight. Next morning they would set out at 6 o'clock, facing a drive of over 70 miles to Taupo. Tlie horses would be changed at Tarawera and Rangitaiki, and the coach would arrive at Taupo late in the evening. On the return journey the first night would be spent at Rangi-

taiki, and the 77 miles from there to Napier would be covereu in the long second day's drive. N early a Tragedy. Mr. Hayhow was very nearly the witness of a tragedy one eveiimg when, on the way to Napier, he arrived at Marshall's Crossing, about 12 miles from town, and found it in flood and impassable for the coach. There were three passengers, a man and his wife and daughter. If tliey waited two "or tliree liours the floocl might go down and they might be a'ole to take the coach across. On the other lian'd, it miglit not' go down much. This left the choice of going back to Te Pohue for the night, or swimming the creek

on tiorseback. As all the passengers were used to horses, they decided to adopt the latter course. Mr. Hayhow took his mails across and escorted thd man and his daughter over, then went back for the third passenger. Swiming his liorse upstream from hers to break the current, the driver noticed that the woman took fright and began to lose her balance when the water came up to her horse's back. Making a grab at her skirt, he was just able to hold her until they leached shaiJow water. Leaving the passengers at Marshall's for the night, the driver rode on to town with the mails and returned in the. morning for the coach Much Mud. "Was there much mud!" exclaitned Mr. Hayhow in answer to a questinn. "Oue time I had to pull up at Te Haroto, and one of the lady -passengers thought she would step down from the box seat t-o the bank. She missed the bank, and went almost out of sight in the mud." He went on to say that, m the early motoring days, he knew a man at Te Pohue who made a living by pulling cars up the Titiokura hill to' the Saddle with a team of horses. Bringing down the old steam launch that used to run between Taupo and Tokaanu sticks in Mr. Hayliow's memory as one of his trickiest jobs on. the Taupo road. She was brought on a logging lorry, horse-drawn, but had to he "snigged" round some of the corners with a chain on her bows. In those days there was hardly any township, or clear camping space, at Taupo, but people would go up for months at a stretch and stay at the Terraces or the Spa. A favourite tourist route at that time was . from Rotorua to Taupo by coach, then across the Lake to Tokaanu by steamboat, thenco Waihora and Pipiriki and dowp the Wanganui river to Wanganui. There was no telephone service between Taupo and Tokaanu, so that pigeons were used as a means of communication between the two places, and played a big part in making the arrangements for connection of tourist services.