The Old Coachdrivers
"] HERE was for many years a police camp across '" the Waimakariri River opposite the Bealey Hotel. The site was afterwards reduced to a tin hut on which some wag chalked the name "Klondike" about the time of the Alaskan gold rush. This name for some reason remained, and the place now known
as Klondyke near the junction of the Bealey and Waimakariri Rivers is the site of the old police camp over 50 years ago. The old coachdrivers were wonderfully skilful inthe way they handled their teams of five horses — three leaders and two wheelers. On one occasion my father was the only passenger from the West Coast. There had been floods in the Otira and
just before the zigzag they found that the staging had been swept away in one place leaving a gap of some 6 or 8 feet. It was getting dark and of course the coach had to get through if possible. My father and Knox, the driver, went down the river and found some of the damaged staging. They managed to carry back one of the baulks of timber. This was put across the outside of the gap, and Knox mounted the box seat and put the horses down into the gap and up again the other side with the outer wheels on the six-inch timber and the inner wheels on the two feet bench hewn out of the rocks.-(" Recollections of the Old Coast Road," by Mr, A. P. Harper, 3¥A, December 27.)
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19410103.2.9.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 80, 3 January 1941, Page 5
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252The Old Coachdrivers New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 80, 3 January 1941, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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