ARAWATA BILL
Sir-In The Listener of July 31 I read an account of Arawata Bill (W. O’Leary), which says that he travelled with a horse for 20 years. He used to buy old horses to carry his swag, though not always; generally he carried it himself. As Mrs. MacKenzie says in her book Pioneers of Martin’s Bay, he travelled alone, not even with a dog for company; but sometimes he bought a horse to carry his outfit, when he would make a longer stay in the wilds. Once he had a horse with only one eye. The longest time he had a horse was about five years, Twice I was on the coast and met ' Arawata, and he had no horse. Horses cannot go through the West Coast bush unless there are tracks, and tracks are few. It was said that he got his name Arawata Bill because he kept the 37 miles of track clear between Jackson’s Bay and Big Bay. There is no track, and never was, except between Jackson’s Bay and Cascade. Arawata was never employed on it. His name originated in his long prospecting of the Arawata Valley. For a time he tended the ferry over the Arawata River.
J.
M.
(Mosgiel).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530828.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 737, 28 August 1953, Page 5
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206ARAWATA BILL New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 737, 28 August 1953, Page 5
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