“MOONSHINE.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 3893, 10 January 1929, Page 3

“MOONSHINE.”

DOMINION’S BIGGEST STILL. IN THE KAIMA'NAWJA HILLS. SECRET OF THE OWNERSHIP. IVJhere high revenue tariffs upon ■alcoholic liquors prevail there is always the temptation to reap big profits in the production of what the world has come to know as “moonshine.” Illicit stills are far from unknown ip New Zealand. It is quite probable that some still exist in isolated districts. Those professing inside knowledge aver that spirit which knows not the excise officer still comes from some carefully concealed spot in the Coromandel Ranges, and not so long ago police investigation disclosed fairly extensive operations by illegal distillers in Southland. The advance of settlement, the extension, of road and rail have lessened the opportunities for this profitable yet risky occupation, and it must have been the completion of the North Island Main Trunk line which cau-

sed the abandonment of what may fairly be claimed as the (biggest illicit distillery that New Zealand has known. For more than twenty years now this plant has remained deserted, a crumbling monument to a traffic that had its excitements, its dangers and certainly its profits. Doubtless the increase in the dangers, with a consequent lessening of the profits led to an abandonment ore the inevitable discovery came. During last deer stalking season, a party of Auckland sportsmen ventured away into the lonely and windswept Kaimanawa Ranges, lying to the eastward of the plateau from, which rases Ruapehu. Along the road from Waiouru to Tokaami

they turned off to the right, towards the mountains, and a climb through broken country brought the hunters to a slump of beech forest. In the centre of this the still had been located, and from it in days gone by various depots in Gisborne, Napier nnd Wanganui had been supplied wit'll alcohol which eventually found its way into some of the hotels in those towns. To the eyes of the visitors there was ample evidence that operations once were carried

but on a very extensive scale, and from people who knew the district were gleaned some of the facts of the days, now fully a quarter of a century gone, when that forest clump was carefully guarded by a small hand whose nefarious calling made them desparate. FALLEN TO DECAY.

No small capital- must have been invested to start the enterprise. A solid chimney, fully five feet in diameter, still stands, and the bricks with which it was constructed came by packhorse all the way from Wanganui. The wooden buildings have fallen to decay, and the rails of what were once the stockyards, now lie rotting. The worm, that essential part of the still, is now supposed to lie buried somewhere in the. ranges, and there are those yet alive who are aware of its location. There must have been strenuous times long ago in this beech-ringed clearing. The story goes that- fully a hundred pack-horses were employed by the “moonshiners,” who brought in their grain and all supplies from either the east or the west coast, as trade suited, and who departed regularly, but at long intervals, with their strings of packhorses, whose backs bore the illegal liquor. Times and conditions made the life hard, but there were chances for obtaining meat through raiding the flocks on sheep stations through which the conveys passed, and evidence in the shape of bones indicates that mutton was a staple diet in this rough camp. When this big still commenced operations, who controlled it, and when it was abandoned, the writer has been tumble to ascertain, hut there must he a number of people on both sides of the North Island who were aware of its existence, if not of its locality. That its liquor once found its way to hotels in the old days of “fire-water,” is certain, and the quantities which the plant was capable of producing suggest the great extent of the trade which once existed to the detriment of the country’s revenue. In connection with this now abandoned spot there is one authentic story which is worth relating. Before the railway spanned the plateau on the western slopes of Ruapehu, some drovers were taking a mob of cattle along the road that runs from Waiouru to the southern shore of Lake Taupo. The cattle were overtaken by a snowstorm so severe that they drifted away from control, and, as beasts will do, sought shelter in the bush clumps cn the Kaimanawa mountain slopes. One drover, searching for strays, came over a ridge to sight a patch of forest with tracks of animals leading towards it. He ' followed the tracks, and rode into the open hush that grows at this altitude. Not far had lie proceeded when he was accosted by a man who demanded his business. The drover explained that he was searching for cattle that had broken away during the storm. “There are no cattle here,” was the gruff reply. The venturer into the fprest pointed to the tracks, and announced his intention of following them. Again he received the assurance that his cattle were not in that direction, hut this time the information was conveyed in a manner which indicated that further attempts at progress would meet with resistance. So emphatic was the man of the forest that the drover eventually used discretion and departed in another direction.

THOUGHT HE WAS A SPY. The incident probably passed later from his mind, hut twenty years I afterwards, when the driver was in charge of the stock department for I a big firm in an Auckland prorinI cial town, a client asked him if he I had ever, in 'his,. droving days, rid - I den into a patch of bush on the Kaimanawa Ranges, and been warned not to proceed further. The incident came hack in a flash, and an illuminating explanation followed. “I was not the man who warned you,” said the client, “but I -witnessed the scene, and you were -wise not to persist in your idea of searching. Three rifles were trained on you, and, had you gone on, you would not have come out of the bush alive. We did not believe your story of the cattle. We thought you were a spy, probably sent by the police, and though you were unaware of it, your progress was observed for many hours after you got out into the opening.” Little further (Could be gleaned. The secret of ownership was too well kept.