(2) ACROSS THE MAIN DIVIDE

Te Ao Hou, September 1955, Page 25

(2) ACROSS THE MAIN DIVIDE When Raureka of the Ngatiwairangia pioneered the first crossing of the Southern Alps about 1700 A.D., according to the legend, she used an interesting and direct route. As explained in the preceding part of this article, she crossed what is now mapped as Browning's Pass. I have been over this route three times and can remember it as vividly as though it was last week. Raureka would have come up the Arahura Valley from the coast or from the Styx Valley near Lake Kaniere. Today we bypass the deep rock gorges by travelling on a foot track in the bush. Where we travel dryfoot, Raureka would have waded or swum deep pools where the blue mountain ducks frolic like spear fishermen. Further up the valley the bush gives way to stunted sub-alpine scrub, and a dangerous tributary, the Harman, can hold parties up in flood time. At the head of the valley, steep snowgrass and rocky bluffs force the traveller to a zig-zag climb up to Lake Browning, thirty-eight acres of blue snow water. Beyond the lake and at 4,500 odd feet is the pass, dividing Westland from Canterbury. The approach is very gradual.

There is nothing gradual about the descent to Canterbury. Nor is it a zig-zag. It begins in a rocky gut and falls to a steep shingle slide which in winter would be frozen snow or ice. In summer one can run down the shingle but it is rough going, and Raureka would have had battered sandals after two thousand feet of descent. Then the valley is wide and grassy. Instead of the dense rain forest or tangled scrub of Westland there is the lush river flat and broad boulder beaches that give easy travelling all the way down to Lake Coleridge. Passing the Mathias and Rakaia rivers, Raureka would have reached the Canterbury Plains near Methven and thus had a clear way to Geraldine, where legend holds that she met the Ngaitahu. Browning's Pass was much used by gold prospectors in the rushes of the sixties and even now there are traces of their attempts to blast tracks around bluffs: And on Browning's Pass itself there is a little miner's hut, in which you can sleep if you first remove the bellows. Browning's Pass is now a key link in the Three Pass route from the Bealey to Hokitika, and many trampers make this their first trip across the Main Divide of the Southern Alps. Mountain clubs have huts scattered along the route, and there is a fair track through the worst of the bush. Between the Waiau in Canterbury, and the Maruia and other West Coast rivers there are several low passes which were reputed to have been used by Maori travellers. Most notable of these is the Lewis Pass, which now has a good highway and service cars. The mountains in this region do not rise above seven thousand feet and The Bealey (Canterbury) side of Arthur's Pass. (Photo: John Pascoe.) though they support a few snowfields there are no permanent glaciers. Cannibal Gorge in the upper Maruia is said to have been traversed by raiding parties but its legends are as misty as its waterfalls in the rainy season. The rivers would have abounded in eels and the bush in bird life, and there is little doubt that the route would have been a favourite one. The next valleys south are the Hurunui in Canterbury and the Taramakau in Westland, linked by the Harper Pass, 3,152 feet. This is as important to pakeha mountain history as Browning's Pass is to Maori legend. For it was over the Harper Pass that the white men first crossed the Main Divide. It was “discovered” in September 1857 by Edward Dobson and two others. Dobson was the Provincial Engineer for Canterbury. He must have learnt of the existence of this pass from the Maoris of Kaiapoi. Neither Dobson nor the next pakeha party to visit the pass crossed, it to the West Coast. That honour was left to young Leonard Harper, whose feat has been recorded by his son Arthur P. Harper, our veteran New Zealand mountaineer, now ninety years of age.* Mr Arthur P. Harper has died since the writing of this article. Leonard Harper, then twenty years old, and a Mr Locke left late in October 1857. On a visit to Kaiapoi with his father, then Bishop of Canterbury, he heard from the chief Tainui that ‘after the battle of Kaiapoi when Te Rauparaha had raided the South Island, certain Maoris had fled up the Hurunui River to the West Coast and settled there.’ Leonard persuaded Tainui to allow his son Ihaia and two other Maoris to guide him across the ranges, and promised not to publicise his trip. They towed their swags in an old canoe along the side of Lake Sumner, and left horses

near the head of the Hurunui. In the middle of November they crossed the pass to Westland, where thick bush and flooded rivers made the going slow. After twelve days they reached the coast, and made the last stage on a flax raft. At the Taramakau pa, Tarapuhi, a brother of Tainui, welcomed the white men. Leonard Harper and Tarapuhi later journeyed down the coast to a point below the furthest south reached by Thomas Brunner, Ekehu and Epikiwati, and after a journey of three months Harper and Locke returned to Christchurch. Surveyors were next across the pass, but by the time of the gold rushes it was tramped by many miners, some of whom were badly equipped and poorly clad. Many were drowned in the Taramakau river which was treacherous when flooded. The Journal of the Polynesian Society of 1912 with Skinner's article Arahura Valley. (Photo: John Pascoe) ‘Maori Life on the Poutini Coast’ records that Harper Pass was a favourite Maori route. In 1941 I crossed the pass to see the landmarks for myself, and though this was the twenty-first divide pass I had visited I felt excited because of the atmosphere of tradition that covered the surrounding hills. There was nothing difficult about the expedition as the rivers were low, and we slept in a good hut each night, but I was grateful to have been over such an historic trail. Arthur's Pass was named after Sir Arthur Dobson who in 1864 made the first crossing. He gained his information about the route from the Maori Tarapuhi who had met Leonard Harper seven years earlier. It was asserted in the sixties by Cass, Chief Surveyor for Canterbury, that the Maoris knew nothing about Arthur's Pass to the Otira valley, but at least one of the Maoris interviewed about ‘Life on the Poutini Coast’ had used it in his younger days. This route is now well-known as the railway link from Canterbury to Westland, with the Otira tunnel over five miles long. It is popular both as a climbing centre and as a winter sports resort. The motor road over the pass is one with attractive scenery, and from it travellers may see the beauties of a Westland gorge without the necessity of cutting a track through bush, clinging to bluffs or swimming pools. South of Browning's Pass there is a narrow cleft from the Mathias valley called Canyon Gorge. This leads to the Mathias Pass beyond which the Hokitika river rises. Herries Beattie in his book Maori Lore of Lake, Alp and Fiord (1945) writes that the Mathias Pass was used by war parties, but Skinner's article noted that it was unknown. Of the two authorities, I support Skinner. I have been over the Mathias Pass, and the access on either side is so rough that only trampers or mountaineers would need to be bothered with it. Not far further to the south, lies the Whitcombe Pass from the Rakaia headwaters to the Whitcombe branch of the Hokitika. This is a much easier pass to find and to cross and is thought to have been traversed by early Maoris. Its pakeha history is that it was discovered by Samuel Butler, author of the satire ‘Erewhon’ which gives an excellent description of the features. This was in 1861. Two years later Jacob Lauper, a Swiss, and an engineer, Whitcombe, made the first complete crossing by white men. They had bad weather and made heavy work of the gorges. On reaching the coast they made a dangerous ford of the Taramakau river. Whitcombe was drowned, but Lauper survived to tell the story of their hardships. Today the wild life branch deer killers have a good foot track down the Whitcombe valley and it is sometimes followed by tramping parties after a holiday in the Rakaia. For Maoris it would have been a more difficult trip than Harper Pass, and is not quite as direct as Browning's Pass.

Lake Browning from Browning's Pass. (Photo: John Pascoe) Johannes C. Andersen in his Jubilee History of South Canterbury thought it was possible that Maori parties had travelled over Sealey Pass from Lake Tekapo in the Mackenzie country to Wataroa in Westland, and based his opinion on finding Maori implements close to the Godley Glacier. The pass is in fact a glacier, one which makes it a doubtful route. It is also unlikely that Maori travellers used any pass from the Tasman or Hooker Glaciers in the Mount Cook region. The last and perhaps the most famous pass in Maori history is the Haast, named after Sir Julius von Haast, though he had been preceded by a gold prospector, Cameron. The full account of the crossing by Te Puoho in 1836 of the Haast Pass is given in the Journal of the Polynesian Society of 1910. Briefly the story was this: Te Puoho was chief of the Ngatitama south of Mokau and claimed descent from the Tokomaru canoe. He journeyed to Massacre (Golden) Bay and with one hundred warriors went down the West Coast where he was reinforced by two hundred men under Niho. They continued to Awarua (Big Bay), but found the going so bad that they returned to the Haast valley, and went over the pass to the Makarora to Lake Wanaka, thence across Otago and Southland to the Tuturau village, near the present town of Gore. The raiders were attacked at night by Ngaitahu warriors and were all killed with the exception of three men and a woman, ‘thus, ended in disaster this ill-advised expedition, which must have caused a great deal of suffering, hardship and starvation to its members for no result whatsoever. It really was a very wonderful undertaking considering the terrible country … and has not been equalled by any other in Maori history.’ Nga Whakawa, brother-in-law of Te Puoho was one of the survivors. Alone he travelled across five hundred miles of hostile country back to his kin at Parapara in Golden Bay. A revenge party of one hundred men was turned back at Port Underwood in Marlborough as peace had been made with the Ngaitahu. Thus ended an epic of guerilla warfare and mountain travel. This summary of myth and fact about Maori parties in the Southern Alps is not complete without reference to the years of settlement by Europeans. Bannister and Fluerty, both of Maori descent, were good guides in the Franz Josef Glacier and Tasman Glacier regions. Arthur P. The Whitcombe Pass from the Canterbury side. (Photo: John Pascoe.) Harper in the nineties was accompanied on his Westland explorations by Ruera te Maihi—Bill the Maori. It is not too much to hope that Maori mountaineers will in future years join with fellow New Zealanders in climbing the high peaks and crossing the passes of the Southern Alps. They fought in the mountains of Greece, Crete and Italy with the distinction of which New Zealand is proud. The traditions of Ruera and Te Puoho were fulfilled in the deeds of their countrymen.