THE ALFREDTON-EKETAHUNA ROAD.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1979, 1 May 1885, Page 2

THE ALFREDTON-EKETAHUNA ROAD.

(To the Editor). Sir—So the Eketahuna - Alfredfcon metalling racket is now at an end; falsehood having triumphed over truth, At the last meeting ot the Wairarapa East County Council, the new Engineer, having got into a dirty mess regarding this metalling, ho had to get out of it, and he did, to a certain extent, 'by telling a deliberate-"hum." He said Eketahuna end was as bad as the Alfred ton end," which no man with a grjiti-bl truth in him would have the: Mpity to aver. This is his first check ;;let us (the unfortunate ratepayers) hope it: will have a salutary effect, T think it would be very difficult for the Paliiatua'King to prove his having'been "recently" in Alfredton or Tiraunica via the Alfredton road, or, rather, the Eketahuna-Tinui mud hole, He may have ridden on tho dry half of the road; but 1 reckon his courago failed him when he came to the mud holes, and the fascines, that havi? been put in by the 7s-a-day-County-em-:ployees.; I heard of a mob of 600 sheep •that left Alfredton at 10.30 a,m.', on the thirteenth of this month in charge of four men, and it took them until dark to travel four miles. One of. the - men told me they had actually; to cany and haul the unfortunate sheep through the mud. There were. orf-i/ Un sheep smothered during the day. Next morning they took from daylight to 1,30 p.m. to travel a mile and a-half; ithrce'and a half hours of this spent in one particular bend at the swamp thai Mr Bremner said "was as dry as the -Eketahuna- end,;and did not require metalling." The remaining seven, miles of the road, they went through in four hours,'a dry road being such a luxury to the : sheep that-they actually cantered along when the men and dogs gave them a chance. This muddy road has sent one man to his last account, and unless the County t go on'..-with the bush-falling at once, it will send a few more men, horses, and; bullocks, to their last sleep, 'i-anij&c,, Affii Mud Holes.