OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 March 1940, Page 4

OTHER PEOPLE’S IDEAS

PIONEER PRELUDES (To the Editor.) Sir,—ln your “News of the District” columns of Friday last, I was greatly mteresl.ed to find therein your Carterton representative’s very fine report ■f an interview he had had with Mrs A. T. Hawke, of Clareville, regarding 'he arrival of her father (the late Mr Thomas Kempton) in March, 1853. It also referred to Mr Ben Keys, and his 1: iter to the late Mr Thos. Wilmor McKenzie, of Wellington (father of Councillor Lett McKenzie of that City) handed over to Mrs Hawke’s father, for correct first-hand answering, leads ;-!f Ig supplement the same by an extract or two from the pages of the laic Mr John Hall’s famous (1884) pampiilet in which this long-forgotten Grey town celebrity mentions a memorable first trek of his, over the then yz.ld and wooded Rimutaka highway, m 1854; and which account of same, inter alia and slight paraphrasing, reads: — Arriving in New Zealand on December 20, 1853, in the good ship Northfleet, I soon became interested in the Wairarapa Small Farm Settlement Scheme just newly augurated and, eight months later (anxious to have a look at the particular balloted-for allotment drawm by me) I set out, in company with a new-found friend who had came back to Wellington, aftei locating his allotment at Greytown, drawn earlier, for the “Eldorado of my dreams.” At this period in its history, the road through the Hutt Valley was made fit lor traffic only as far as Barton’s gate (Trentham) some seventeen miles distant from Wellington. . . . Reaching as far as the Hon. Mr Petre’s sawmill (5 miles further on) we found this distinguished gentleman’s industrious son (moleskin-clad chiefly) pushing a wheelbarrow along' what seemed a self-made track’ on these domains. So, keeping along what appeared a moreused line of unformed roadway for

■ travellers, boggy and beggaring all description, we at last came to Mungaroa Valley and here found its wooden bridge to have been washed away by flood. ... By the time the old Collins' Hostelry (chiefly built to accommodate the section of road builders toiling a little beyond its location) was reached, we thought—having travelled 36 miles without definite halt smee early breakfast —we might now be excused if we laid aside our heavy swags and had a bite of lunch. . . . Thus fortified we trudged on, once more, towards our Greytown objective, the track still, for the most part (despite Public Works attentions) being through a sea of swampy mud, through which we stolidly laboured until Pukuratahi, and its Golden Fleece hostelry (Hodder’s), was reached; and where my friend (not being a Rechabite as I was) paused for a little stimulating refreshment! A few chains further on, we forded the Pakuratahi stream, and soon arrived at. its other side, upland level, but still mostly swampland corduroy track, over which we traversed slowly till the actual foothills of the Rimutaka Hill itself —and a better track for travel—was reached. . . . About half way up the northern incline my friend, who knew all about its exact but hidden location, moved slightly off the track, along a spur of the hill where we camped for the night in an old deserted shack used by roadmakers and their teamsters, and built near an old deserted blacksmith’s shop

where their horses once were shod. Next morning, greatly refreshed by the night’s spell, despite the disturbance of innumerable restless rats, we resumed our journey up the hill, but not before my friend (having cached them on his reverseway journey) unearthed a number of weighty iron wedges, and for his bushwhacking use the other side of the Hill —had added these to my already well-laden swag! After so much mudflat journeying of the day before, these last .two or three uphill-to-Summit miles, by way of comparison, were easily scaled —their chief reward, in my case, being a first, if distant, summit view of the Wairarapa Plains. “ We now had a good road to traverse (except 28 chains of it lower down) •11 the way to the foot of the Hill, the northern side just traversed having only half-a-mile of track of . similar kind. At one corner of the downhill track, however, no more than 2 or 3

feet, at most, of dangerous track had been won from the blue-veined buttress rock round which it curved —a nightmare, for both man and beast to negotiate, if ever there was one! However, we had no “added fury of gale” in these parts to contend with, on this occasion, so we were not long in coming to what was then called the ‘ mountain stream,” where Burling’s hostelry, of those days, was offering hospitable accommodation to all travellers, both man and beast. . . Thence, shaping our course for Tauherenikau Plains, and its river ford we very scon found ourselves again engulfed in a quagmire up to our verj knees in parts; then watery swamp of less leg-adhering kind; big boulders to •lodge round; and, at last, more solid ground. . . . Crossing the Tauherenikau to the Ferry House (Wilkinson’s) on its opposite bank, we were very glad to dine there l on whatever (for lack of today’s regular-calling milkman, butcher, grocer, etc.) came io hand, or found its way to mouth. . . Starting for Greytown by a nowmore direct route, all . Tauherenikau Plain lay stretched out before our eyes —mostly fern clad country, but with an army of “wild Irishman” to contend with on route; and (believe John Hall or not) not a single boulder of an; sort in sight! . . . After plodding along wearily through at least 5 miles cf “fern-and-stiletto” inter-mixture growth, we at last came to Greytown —at least its chosen site—where stood, at the edge of the bush, one solitary whare; and, not far away from it, ; few slabs stuck in the ground at a slant, the first rude structure already started by my new-found hill-journey friend: and neath whose indifferent shelter we—after a memorable two days’ journey, of 54 miles, from Wellington to its bush-fringed, lonely out-post-dropped our swags, with a big measure of bodily as well as spiritual relief. Of the great earthquake of 1855, also mentioned in your Carterton Special’s article, this, too, finds mention in John . Hall’s historic pamphlet; its destruction of much of the work already done by the roadmaking gangs on both sides of Rimutaka Summit (even lead- ; ing to a long pause before repairing even seismic damage, let alone a com- ; pleting of their job); and many other interesting incidents inseparable from early pioneering in the Wairarapa Valley.' Thus, finally, might I venture to pic- ] ture "the whare at the edge of rhe

bush" as being John Hall's first sight of the old and historic homestead of the Kemptons; and its nearby "slanting slabs” (say "palisades") that of the Udys, whose combined presentgeneration descendants (were they so minded) could easily tax. the eabin-and-steerage accommodation of even the groat trans-Tasman liner. Ihe Awatoa. to such numerical extent, as to leave very little room for other Wairarapa family groups. Greetings to all of these I know or have known; mid. to those of rhem unknown to mo. I’d like to meet. —I am, etc., N..T.8. Masterton. March 9.