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Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1938, Page 6

Visitor’s Enthusiasm. “What a glorious sight to greet visitors,” exclaimed an Australian woman who arrived in Wanganui by car from New Plymouth, referring to Virginia Lake. “It was such a pleasant surprise after miles of farmlands, and it looked so lovely in the morning sunshine that I asked the driver to stop the car while I could have a good look at it.” The visitor said that she intended to make a more thorough inspection of the reserve. The lake and its surroundings are looking particularly beautiful now that the willows are coming into leaf. Mine Rescue Station. One of the most modern mine rescue stations in the world will be established at Dobson at a cost of £4OOO. The Minister for Mines (the Hon P. C. Webb) hopes that the station will be ready in November. Dobson had been chosen, Mr Webb said, because it was considered the most central place among those mines likely to be faced with gas troubles. In add.’fion to providing safety measures for the men, the rescue station might also, from the companies’ point of view, be a means of saving the burning away of valuable assets. The Government had advanced the £4OOO required to equip the station with the most modern safety devices procurable. The £4OOO would be repaid to the Government by a Id a ton tax on coal from the mines in the district, so that ultimately the industry would pay the charge occasioned through the provision of the equipment and the training of the men operating the rescue station. Numbers of young men were already being trained at the State mines with apparatus which the State possessed, and when the rescue station opened there would be qualified men in charge.

Patrick Carroll Hut. The Patrick Carroll Memorial Hut, which has been erected at Kelly Range as a memorial to Patrick Carroll, captain of the Grey Alpine Club, who died of exposure while on a mountaineering outing last year, will be opened on November 20, this date being convenient to both the West Coast Alpine Club, which built the hut, and the Arthur’s Pass National Park Board, which supplied the material for its construction. Mr A. G. Fowler was appointed to represent the board at the opening at a meeting of the beard. Dr W. McKay said that the hut was finished except for lining and bunks. H considered that the members of the Alpine Club had shown a fine civic spirit worthy of commendation in building the hut. The board decided to grant £3 for a tablet for the hut. Flood Restoration. So rapid has been the progress made by the Railway Department in clearing away the silt and restoring the damage to the line in the Haw’ke’s Bay flood area around Eskdale that it is expected that through communication by rail will be established to Wairoa by the end of this year. While restoration has been in hand the Public Works Department has been pushing ahead the construction of the line, and the linking up with Wairoa, which is 60 miles from Napier, will bring the railhead within 71 miles of Gisborne. When the Government resumed construction work on the line in July, 1936, it was anticipated that the scheme would be completed in 1940. A sum of £3,565,000 had been spent when work was suspended in 1931, and the total expenditure during 1937-38 was £509,555, making a total outlay up to the end of March. 1938, I nf. £4.690.276. I