Hard times in Rangataua recalled

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 583, 25 April 1995, Page 6

Hard times in Rangataua recalled

By

Gerry

Cranston

The creek played a large part in our young lives. My father erected a log high above the creek for us to walk over in our school boots. My brother Tony, who purchased the home farm from my father, still uses a similar method to cross today. As children in summer, we continually played in or at this creek, making dams, paddling, digging caves in the banks, catching trout etc. A huge Maori man, a Mr Jimmy Coffin who lived nearby, taught us how to tickle trout and how to eat raw birds' eggs by making a hole in each end on the spike of a barbed wire fence, and then giving them a hearty suck! We often filled a frypan with these eggs, you would be surprised how many you can break into a frypan. Mum was very fond of crabs, which were easily caught in the smaller streams on our farm. We would set off with a treacle billy (a most useful container when we attached a wire handle) and when we returned home later with our catch, mother would heat a large pot of water and when it was really boiling she would drop the live crabs in. They were killed instantly and immediately turned bright red. They were given three minutes to cook, a dash of vinegar, salt and pepper added to the edible pieces. Tastier morsels I have never encountered.