A TRIP TO THE NGAKAWHAU.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1063, 15 April 1873, Page 2

A TRIP TO THE NGAKAWHAU.

By Becbtjit. There had been rumours about town for some time past that a portion of our fellow-townsmen meditated a sort of picnic visit to the Ngakawhau coal seam. I quietly made up my mind that I would be one of the party, and with this view I dodged round and made enquiries who were going and when, and having satisfied myself upon those points, I began by dropping quiet hints to various individuals who I learnt were of the party, that I wished I could go, and I would go if I could only get a conveyance, and such like and so on ; which seed being dropped into good ground soon bore the desired fruit, some one kindly coming forward and offering me a pleasant means of transit.

It was arranged that we should all meet at and start from the residence of our genial old friend Mr Falla, upon some fine morning when the tide suited, and accordingly there we met to the number of eight or nine, about half-past seven on the morning of Sunday week. Mi* Falla had apparently taken upon himself the burden of finding carriage for all those who couldn't accommodate themselves elsewhere, and had provided a spring cart with improvised outrigger for their comfort and convenience. A fine hot steak and a cup of coffee-royal quickly prepared and served up to us by young ladies with willing hands and cheerful faces, who laughed while theyupbraided us for disturbing them at such an early hour, formed a good foundation whereon to build a superstructure of labor and fatigue. After so fortifying ourselves we adjourned to the stable yard, and there was such a harnessing and saddling, and mounting, and putting to of horses, and such a fixing of swags and improvising saddle straps, and a looking at ourselves and one another to see that we cut the correct figure mounted, as we residents in a country almost barren of roads and fields seldom see, and which made the neighbors stare as though they thought we were going to fulfil the prophesy of the wag who said—When Vogel's millions are squandered New Zealand will present a fine field for emigration. After one false start we got away, in sporting - parlance, well together, and I took a quiet look round to see who we were, and there was our friend and host, the man of the cheerful countenance and full proportions, of whom some local wit has said—We don't require a corporation, because if the Government will only make him a Mayor, we shall have Mayor and Corporation rolled into one; and there was our friend of the Masonic and Hospital laurels mounted upon a stiff old charger, and who addedanother proof to those already collected of his fondness for work by gracefully performing the up and down business to the regular and long strided trot of his steed. Our Knight of the Hammer, he too was there in topcoat and gorgeous bran new gloves, which he periodically held up to our admiration, insisting that the whole respectability of our crowd lay therein, and proving the comprehensive ness of his manipulations by the way in which he manipulated a pair of good looking trap horses; and there also was the ruler of our Empire, bearing with him the same cheerful countenance and the same happy and contented appearance which heg always assumes when away from his business and he sees other people determined to be jolly; and our friend Johnny, great at poking fun, and of a most inscrutable countenance when you seek to find if he is taking a quiet rise out of you or not. Our representative of the legal profession, who got up in breeches and leggings looked more like a successful

dealer in sheep or cattle than a hard working student of Blackstone, completed the list of local celebrities. These with a gentleman sojourner, who makes it part of his religious duty to rate Vogel and the Government annuities scheme, and to convince people that Table J of the Mutual Provident Society is the only desirable scheme of life assurance, together with our cheerful and entertaining Inspector of Schools, made up the party, and, as I said before, we got away well together. "We soon reached the Orawaiti, and after a little trouble we got across, mentally blessing the Nelson Government for not providing a bridge and thereby depriving us of the pleasant uncertainty as to whether any of us should lose the member of his mess in one of the numerous quicksands of that treacherous river. Away we went at a good pace along the beach, laughing, and joking, and racing, and smoking, and pushing ahead, and hanging back till we came to the Waimangaroa river, when the occupants of the spring cart exhibited most unmistakable signs of distress, and an intention to come to a dead stop. Of course the riders turned back to seek its cause when it was found that our host Falla, with his usual foresight, had provided a hamper containing fat things full of marrow, and bottled beer to wash them down. "We soon proved our appreciation of his catering by polishing off the good things provided, and after giving our horses a mouthful of oats we made another start. "We reached M'Nairns on the bank of the Ngakawhau river, about 12 o'clock, and after baiting our horses, intimated our intention to visit the coal seam before dinner. Mr Chambers, the mining manager of the company, now offered himself as our guide, and under his direction we took possession of two boats, and proceeded to navigate ourselves up stream. Having arrived at the coal shoot we lauded, aud our attention was first of all called to the seam of coal as it lies exposed at the mouth of the tunnel. It lies at aD angle of about 38 with the river, rests upon a seam of splendid fire clay 18 inches thick, is covered with a grey sandstone formation, and is in itself about 16 feet thick at the point where the tunnel enters. Having made an inspection of the wharf shoot which holds about 300 tons of coal, and is so built that a vessel of that tonnage can lay alongside and receive a continuous stream of coal into her hold until full; we proceeded to the tunnel. The mouth of the tunnel is about 20ft from the shoot, about 40ft above the river, and enters the side of a hill perhaps 300 feet high. At the back of this hill runs the Stony creek, and at the back of this again rises another raDge of hills of a much greater altitude, which are again themselves backed up by Mount Kochfort. Each of us was now provided with a candle and after proceeding a few paces we found that we were in a drive abi ut 8 feet wide by 14 to 16 feet high, the walls and roof of which were composed of the black diamonds. After proceeding perhaps 50 feet in our attention was directed to a crack in the seam, and we were told that this was the occasion of Dr Hector's arriving at the erroneous couclusion that this was a slip. The learned Doctor, like many other wise men, makes mistakes. But unlike many other wise men he admits his fallibility, and when bowled out concedes the truth of the maxim liumanum est errare. After giving our unbiassed and unlearned opinions upon the crack and its origin we passed on and dived still deeper into the well exhibited gloom. Two hundred feet I think they said we went, but it was still Coal! Coal! ! Coal! I! We were walking on coal, covered on all sides with coal, and coal echoed back our laughter and poor jokes. When we had nearly reached the end of the tunnel, and could just distinquish the dark face in the distance, our guide cried out " Beware of the dip." But like the poor chicken that chirped as he went down the capacious throat of the egg sucker—he just spoke too late—as one of our party had just stepped thirty-three inches too far, and gone down suddenly about two feet. He turned up again, however, and indignantly demanded if they had sunk the floor of the tunnel for the express purpose of tripping up unwary visitors. He was however assured that such was not the case, but that the coal seam had very arbitrarily (and very unfortunately for him) taken a sudden dip at that spot of two feet perpendicular. And now we all got together and examined the face, sides, and roof with our candles, and every, one present—those who had been lowered hundreds of feetinto the bowels of the earth to view the coal seams in the old country, those who had seen the coal seams in Australia, at the Grey, Bay of Islands, Malvern, and elsewhere, and those who had never seen a coal seam before in their lives unanimously agreed that there had never been a seam of coal opened in creation so extensive, so thick, bo good, and so easily accessible, as this! To add to ourastonishment and local pride we were informed that half a score seams of coal of equal quality, and in some cases thicker in the seam, crop out at various places up the river, within a few miles of where we stood. I could not help thinking what would dear old England give to possess such mines of wealth, and wouldn't she then be able to laugh at the croakers who tell her there are only so many tons of coal in the Island, and that when those are gone she will gradually fade away, her glory depart, and like the Phcene-

cian, the Roman, and the Athenian nations, she will become a thing of the past, a nation of history. For fear that last sentence should he lost to posterity I carefully noted it on the ground, as a choice specimen of exotic metaphor. We now started off by a rough track to view the outcrops up Stony Creek—and well it may be called Stony—it's nothing but stones, and to get up it we had to jump and climb and wade till the perspiration poured out of us. And many times we had to stop and hold our sides with laughter as one or other of us miscalculating his distance or his jumping power, fell short into the water and transformed ■himself into a spread eagle on some friendly boulder. The majority, how. ever persevered, and at last reached a spot a long way up the river, where we found a hole dug 14 feet deep, and the coal exposed again. This we were informed was in a straight line with the tunnel we had just left, and 1200 feet from the present face, borne of ns now began making calculations or guesses as to how much coal was contained in the area already explored, and were puzzling our brains consider* ably when Mr Chambers kindly came to our relief and informed us that the company's general manager calculated that with the coal already proved available they could supply a demand of fifty thousand tons per annum, for a period of one thousand years, or a grand total of fifty million tons. "We were further informed that the net cost to the company of getting out the coal and putting it in the shoot is 4s 6d per ton, but of course the company require and deserve a good profit upon their outlay and risk, and they charge the vessels 8s per ton delivered on hoard.

We now crossed the creek, and led by Mr Chambers, worked our passage through lawyers, supplejacks and such like impediments about 200 feet up the opposite hill, when our attention was directed to the outcrop on that side of the creek, which evidences the continuation of the seam we had already explored on the other side. This seam or continuation has not been explored further than just sufficient to prove its existence, but the coal is of the same description as that now worked, and was found without any difficulty by taking the bearings of the seam from the tunnel. • This last evidence satisfied us conclusively. Indeed we felt so full of coal that we declined to have any more of it, and were almost rude in our refusal of Mr Chambers' pressing invitation to go further up and along the side to various other outcrops. At last we descended the creek on the return jouruey. At the bottom we found our funny friend Johnny with a large number of specimens consisting of coal, granite, stalactite conglomerate, wood, flax, and all sorts of colonial produce, spread out in imposing array upon a tough block of sandstone. He insisted upon our staying to admire his stock, and promised us a lecture on the exhibits. He made a very good start with " Ladies and gentlemen I have detained you here for a few moments while I exhibit to your admiring gaze the various products of the Ngakawhau district, and explain to you in a few words the geological bearing and construction of this wonderful country." Here some one interposed a facetious observation which caused our lecturer to burst out laughing, and no effort of the more enquiring portion of his audience were successful in controlling his risible faculties" or inducing him to make another effort. The tide was now at the full, and as we were anxious to see the navigable qualities of the river we returned to our boats, and rowed home. The river is very shallow in places, the channel very circuitous, and sometimes at low water you can cross without getting over the tops of a pair of watertights, but this is only in very dry weather, and I understand the average water on the bar at high water is from nine to ten feet. The channel is capable of great improvement at a comparatively small outlay. It is idle however to expect to work the river except with very powerful tugs and light draught barges built expressly for the trade. This scheme I understand has been adopted by the company, and we may hope, in the course of six months, to see five or six barges, carrying sixty or seventy tons apiece, each day towed into the Buller ; and discharging their freight, one on each side, into the ocean vessels. I could say a good deal more upon this last subject but forbear, as I am afraid I have ferespassed too far on your space already. We returned to M'Nairns, and after partaking of a most sumptous repast we disposed ourselves as comfortably as we could about the premises to "wait for the turn of the tide." About eight o'clock, horses were brought round, and after partaking of a delicious cup of tea by way of stirrup cup, we started home. After a very enjoyable moonlight ride along the beach, we reached town about midnight, every one avowing that he never dreamed of spending such an enjoyable day on the West Coast, or that there was so much coal in this blessed country.