LIFE IN BACK-BLOCKS.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 December 1922, Page 3 (Supplement)

LIFE IN BACK-BLOCKS.

ITS MANY COMPENSATIONS. (By Claudia Waite, Tarata.) Very few town people realise what living in the back-blocke means. They think that it is all toil and work, because there are no conveniences such as good roads, electric light, water supply, etc. Certainly the life has many disadvantages, but in trying to conquer those drawbacks one has great fun and many and varied experiences. One of the trials of the pioneer is the packing of hie provisions (there being no roads) in and out, up and down the narrow bush track. He and his pack-horse have to pull and trudge down into the depths of precipitous gullies, and scramble up the heights of the great ridges beyond. He goes on and on till suddenly he emerges from the shadowy bush, comes upon a small clearing strewn with many great block logs, which shows that in recent years a raging fire has been through it. Tn the centre of all this there is a snug little, log cabin, with here and there a cultivated shrub, showing that the little j house has not been quite forgotten by the busy outside world. The education of his children is one of the greatest drawbacks the pioneer feels, for if there is any school at all it is usually a very small one, to which the children have to tramp through long, muddy tracks. In many cases the mother is obliged to teach her children at home until they are old enough to be sent away to a town school. During the long summer days the girls of the wilderness love to take their picnic lunch and enjoy it far from home under the cool, shady trees of the native bush, where they hunt for kiwis’ nests, or gather flowers to take home to mother. A favorite amusement (for the boys) is to take line or rod and spend a whole day in fishing for the native eel or trout, which abounds in the many tiny streams winding in and. out of the hills. The boys who are old enough to handle a gun think it lovely sport to go shooting birds, but, best of all, to take their dogs and go pig hunting. Generally they stay away all day and come home late at night very weary, but not too tired to relate to the household how their dogs brought an old boar to bay by bailing him up between two logs, enabling him to come down and shoot him. Although away from all the amusements the town child enjoys, the pioneer’s family enjoys equally as well the free out-door bus’i life they are i subject to. They seem to delight in this, which their town cousins would deem a terrible hardship, the carrying of the household weekly washing (especially on a spring morning) down to a creek nearby. Often mishaps occur. The basket of clothes may be bent on taking a swim, and nothing seems to delight the small hoys more than wading in after the fast disappearing basket.

The most desired possession of the back-blocks child is to own a horse, for one of their keenest pleasures is to ride wildly after outlaw cattle, which escape into the bush during the scarcity of grass in the winter months. These animals, after the yearly “round-ups,” generally emerge looking very sleek and not altogether tame, having become (like their back-block masters), ra>her shy from being so long from civilisation.

The carrying of the mail to ttfese way-back homesteads is also a problem which the Government has to contend with. Tt is brought by coach to the nearest store, and because of the coach not being able to penetrate any farther, one of the bush farmers comes down with a pack-horse and carries all the mail to their little settlement. Very often it is not delivered more than once a week - which makes “mail day” something to look forward to. There will, of course, come a time when all this far back-block country will be no more. I am sure little New Zealand will be no happier for all that, as the continual forging ahead, and the manly perseverance of our early settlers have been the making of a fine nation. Let every one treasure his tiny pieces of native bush also, for that, too, is passing away.