The Charm of "Central"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 774, 21 May 1954, Page 20

The Charm of "Central"

"NEW ZEALAND’S continental in4 Se ¢ terior" is the term the geographer |B. J. Garnier has used to describe Central Otago. Here, he says, we are well away from oceanic influences, and although in terms of miles it is near the sea in comparison with truly continental areas, the lofty mountains with their steep walls take the place of distance and create in Central Otago a dry climate of temperature extremes. "Central" is one of those areas that seems to cast its spell over all who , know it, and it’s as one who is happy to be under its spell that A. K. Dreaver, of Balclutha, talks about the area in a ‘ series of broadcasts to start next week from 4YA. Mr. Dreaver is no newlycaptivated victim, for he confesses that Central has always fascinated him, As a ltead he spent -a- number of years there,

~~ . ae ee ee _during his secondary school and uni- | versity days he went there for holidays, and he has "worked, fished and just sat in the sun" through the greater part of the area. His talks will be heard in | Country Calendar at 7.20 p.m. on Wednesdays, the first of them on May 26. The Spell of Central Otago isn’t just /a picture of our continental interior today. Mr. Dreaver starts by describing briefly but vividly how the area was formed. Then by way,of an account of _ the routes into the interior, and a pass- | ing reference to the old coaching days, he leads on to gold and water and rocks, _ which have been so much a part of the tradition of Central. The rocks, for example, which are so typical of Central, "tower over you on the Dunstan, the Carricks, the Old Man, the Knobbies, the Rock and Pillars." And, named or _ nameless, they have looked down upon a fascinating. variety of men who have made the human pattern of Central. One of the most interesting of the early figures mentioned by Mr. Dreaver in his | Srst talk is Sergeant Garvey, of the Otago Armed Constabulary Forces, ' which was formed to keep order in the / mining days. At 22 he had taken part in the Charge of the Light Brigade, and _|| at 31 he was dead-lost in a snowstorm

while on duty. "Like so many of the ‘old’ pioneers," Mr. Dreaver comments, "he was a young man." Having set the scene in his first talk, Mr. Dreaver goes on in six more talks to describe more fully the gateways to Central, and some of the things you ll find when you get there. He doesn’t leave history behind-just blends it with his account of the present. So you will find a description of the difficulty of building the railway through the Taieri Gorge leading on to a rush of travellers from the train at Hindon, and then, by way of "bridges and tunnels and cuttings innumerable," to the Strath Taieri Plain and "the massive lift of the Rock and Pillar brooding alongside." Or you can go with Mr. Dreaver to Roxburgh, see the first dredge-holes on the flat at Island Block, slowly filling in now and edged with rushes, and soon be in the fruit districts; and not only picking fruit ("the pleasantest occupation a man can indulge in- apart from watching cricket") but eating-wiping the frost off a Cleopatra under an apple tree at . Ettrick and sinking your teeth through the thin lemon: skin to let the juice gush.