OTAGO’S EARLY DAYS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 9, 15 May 1913, Page 4

OTAGO’S EARLY DAYS.

Last, week in connection with the jubilee of the ‘Wakatipu Mail,” many old memories were revived of doings in the early days of Central Otago. An account of the discovery of Lake Wakitipu was re-published, and is not the least interesting of the reminesconces. It was in 1859, according to this old story, that Mr W. 0. Roes and four, other young men, determined to explore the country to the west of the Upper Molynenx. They started from Dunedin, and following up the Waits ki river to its source, crossed the Lindis Pass, descending into tho Olu-

tha Valley, and forded tlio Hawea branch of the Clutha, whore one of their horses was drowned, and all the supply of biscuits lost. Advancing,' they forded, with some difficulty, the Wanaka. branch of that river, and’ then pushed on up the Cardrona Val- ! ley to the Crown Range. At this* point .Mr Rees left his friends, who were getting very tired of the expedition, and talking of abandoning it, and walked on bv himself for a day and

a-half to the summit of the Crown j Range, where he was rewarded for Ids perseverance by the superb spectacle of the lake spread out in panorama beneath him. Mr Rees returned to the camp and fetched one of his friends—the rest decided to return home—and those two, after a journey rendered extremely arduous owing to the immense growth of spear grass and tumatogora through which they had to force their way, arrived at last at the present site of Queenstown, where they constructed a rude house of wattle and daub. The next year, 1860, Mr Rese made a tour of the lake and made arrangements for stocking stations at the head of the lake. Later on he purchased a whaleboat, which lie had carted from Invercargill. This afterwards attained a local fame by conveying, from Queenstown to Kingston, the first escort for gold produced in the district. The carting, which was only performed with a great amount of difficulty, was done by mounting the boat on wheels and having it drawn by two bullocks. It was not till November, 1862 that the big gold rush set in for the Shotover and Arthur’s Point, which made Queenstown for a time the populous centre of a busy district.