HOKITIKA TO WESTPORT, BY GREYMOUTH & REEFTON.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 894, 30 November 1871, Page 2

HOKITIKA TO WESTPORT, BY GREYMOUTH & REEFTON.

(continued.) Wo left lieefton 011 the morning of the 24th, at six o'clock, with the hope of catching a boat at the Lauding, and finishing the journey through to Westport in the day. About 10 o'clock we reached Malcolm Stevenson's accommodation house, where we received the disappointing intelligence that the boat ha'l gone, taking all the consolation derivable from the first-rate breakfast supplied by Mr Stevenson, we started again, and made Christy's Junction at eleven. The distance is ouly about eight miles, but the track is very bad, almost as bad as that in the Saddle bush. Had we chosen to hurry on, we could easily have reached Westport that night, but we preferred waiting for the boat, which was to start the following morning. The afternoon was spent rambling about the farm and gardens connected with the Junction Hotel, which afforded a treat. The ground is rich and fertile, the growth of crops and grass is most luxuriant, while the orchard and garden are in a high state of cultivation. Mr Minderman has a large number and variety of young and healthy fruit trees, giving promise of abundance of fruit, and he possessed also a reality in the form of magniliceut strawberries, which proved to tis a great and unexpected treat. Altogether, as an auctioneer would say, this is a most desirable homestead, and the owuer a most eligible match for any young lady who may take pity upon him, and have no decided objection to a large family. Only the wife and family are required to realise at the jcxction the Ultima Thule of a prosperous settler's home. Ou the morning of the 25th, we embarked on one of Mr Pell's horse boats, taking with us two horses, and in five hours we arrived at Westport, thereby completing the journey from lieefton to Westport in eleven hours ; the jouruey occupying six hours by land and five by water. If some arrangement were made by which a light conveyance would start from lieefton so as to meet a boat at the landing, the journey from lieefton to Westport could be accomplished with ease in a day, but we will have to wait a little longer for that convenience—although it would pay at the present time. The Provincial Engineer and staff, are at present engaged laying out a road from Eeefton to the Bluff, four miles and a half from the Junction. When that is made it will not only shorten the distance by about nine miles, but it will also render available a large area of excellent agricultural land, a great portion of which is covered with monster totara trees, which in these days of railway building must become very valuable. Altogether, it may be said of the Inangahua Valley, that it presents the most inviting spot for settlement that can be seen in New Zealand, for it combines what is not generally found elsewhere, namely, land of first quality for agriculture, and a sure and good market for the produce, the high freight from other places rendering competition impossible as against farmers on the spot. Already a number of sections have been taken up (under the Agricultural Lease Regulations) varying in size from 10 to 200 acres, in ail about 200uacres have been selected and are now settled upon, exclusiye of a great number of half-acre sections for gardening purposes. The surveyors are now laying out 5,000 acres more, which will still leave a vast tract unoccupied that will also be settled upon as soon as the road is made through the valley, which should be eoutinued as far as Grange's point on the Buller river, in order to facilitate traffic and open for settlement the first-class arable laud wbich would skirt the road on both sides.

Speaking of the quality' of land, reports of surveyors and 'civil* engineers are not always to be relied upon. The knowledge of these gentlemen seems deficient in that respect; as an instance, two civil engineers of eminence selected in payment for their services two large blocks of land, one on Totara Plat in the Grey Valley, the other on Fern Flat in the Valley of the Inangahua ; in both cases the land selected is the worst in the neighbourhood, and so stony as to be worthless except for road making. Probably, at no distant date, a dray road will be constructed from Greytnouth to Wcstport by Kecftou ; for although makiug a road through the Grey Valley could not be said to open for settlement so large an area of

land fit for agriculture, yet there are interests already established there well worthy of consideration, and besides a main line of road traversing two such important districts must tend to the material prosperity of both. At present the means of carriage, either for goods or passengers ara very inadequate. It will be a great oversight if the Government do not avail themselves of the fine weather now setting in in order to complete the work which the Survey Department have now in hand. The inhabitants of the district, impressed with the necessity for this road, have sent a numerously signed petition to the Legislature, asking for its construction ; and they have some right to the expenditure, since their district is now contributing largely to the revenue—over £3OO per month, and entails no expense, except for the maintenance of one official, who acts as receiver of gold revenue, warden's clerk, policeman, lock-up keeper, and lately has acted as coroner. My correspondence having now extended to a considerable length I will close it, with the hope, that when next I visit the Inangahua I may have still further progress to report, of which 1 have little doubt if the district receives fair play.