NELSON TO THE BULLER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 323, 1 October 1874, Page 2

NELSON TO THE BULLER.

To the Editor op the 'Evening Mail.' Sir — The public are led to believe by the promoters of that piece of wickedness and folly, the,constrjictipniof the road from the Grip to, the Hope, that there Is at the present time a good cart'road from Nelson to the Grip, and the supposed existence of the good dray road is made the chief stand point for its con'tinuation"therefrOmr : •"— That no such "good dray road" exists I , frill proceed to show^ I and ; for this purpose will describe the route by the Roundell'bit' by bit, and show, (and I challenge any one to deny it) that there is only a very small portion of this route (it is not a road) formed at all, and that the - chief portion- of -what is formed will have to be abandoned, and a sew road formed instead, before it can b* said with truth that ther<s is a good cart roadfroni Nelson to the Grip. The road, properly so called, terminates at Bell Grove Inn, a little; beyond Foxhil!.' Past this Inn we have nothing but bits of cuttings and sidelings and bits of ditches, with long intervals between of totally unmade portions, and other portions just scratched over in the most superficial manner possible by a party of the unemployed who were sent out by the Government some few years ago to work on the roads. _ With the exception of a new cutting these men made up Budge's Gully, and another cutting into Rae's Gully we may say there is no road at all, and nothing to guide a stranger but the ruts made by the cartwheels uriti> we come to Kerr's Hill, where a cutting two miles long brings us to the summit o( the big Hill, and another long cutting eta the Postman track enables us to descend towards the Big Bush. Now- we come to the terrace in front of Mr Kerr's farm — soft, boggy, and in winter time rotten, and totally unfit even for 'the small amount of traffic it has hither o borne. Having got so far, the drays have next to face the numerous steep and horse killing pinches of the Big Bush, caused by the road being constructed over a lot of sharp spurs and' gullies, instead of on the level in ' front of them. Who, I ask, will have the hardihood to affirm that this portion of the T rdute is " a goad cart road?" . \i ■ :ir -•'Black : Valley needs its thousands, the Buller plains need their thousand; too; for throughout the whole distances f fifteen miles from the Roundel! to the Grip nothing has been done except the making of cuttings and sideliogs where neither horse nor dray could possibly get along in uny shape or form without them, bat to call the ruts and. tracks made by the dray wheels down this valley and these plains a good dray road is monstrous, and as far from the truthas anything could be. , . " ''' lam, &c, ■•■'•'-. • : ; , ( : . "-', ' ' Jambs Gbove. .