SOUTH WESTLAND

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 18, 11 September 1944, Page 3

SOUTH WESTLAND

A KORERO Report

XT'es,” said the settler, “ I suppose Y you could call me a pioneer. I was born in Jackson’s Bay almost seventy years ago. Arawata they called it then. My mother and father settled there under a Government scheme, but it fell through. They needed then what we need nowaccess.” He was off on his favourite theme—South Westland : its possibilities, reading, timber, minerals, farming, fishing, scenic attractions, &c. He didn’t look like a pioneer beard or corduroy breeches— when you heard something of his history and saw something of the country where he had lived and worked for a lifetime you realized that he had fulfilled in every detail the primary condition of pioneering—he had made a living and a home in a wilderness. A very lovely wilderness, it is true, but one as difficult and as isolated as those settled by the earliest pioneers over one hundred years ago. South Westland is no more than a name to many New-Zealanders : To most it means the lower part of the West Coast ; mountains, glaciers, and bush. They would be amazed if they were told that Ross, the southern terminal of the West Coast railway, was third on the list of live-stock exporting stations

in the South Island. They would be equally amazed to learn of the difficulties overcome by the settlers in bringing their stock to the railhead and of the romance and adventure of life in the last of New Zealand’s backblocks. South Westland really begins below Ross, an old gold-mining town which may know a modified revival of the rush days after the war, when it is thought that the flats around the town will be dredged for the gold which the diggers passed over. From Ross a good road winds south under the shadow of the Alps through magnificent rain forests to Paringa, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles. Where some of the larger rivers drop from the mountains the land has been cleared and settlements and farms established. Harihari, Wataroa, Waiho, and Weheka are names familiar enough to any Coaster. Here on the river-flats there are cattle and sheep runs and life is not dissimilar to that of any outback farming community elsewhere in New Zealand. The service car goes through three times a week (daily in peacetime) bringing the mail, the newspapers, the meat, and perhaps a little shopping for the farmer’s wife done in Hokitika by the driver, who is postman, messenger, tourist guide, and “ friend of the family ” all along the

route. In normal times private cars pass in and out of the glacier country by the dozen. There are first-class accommo-dation-houses at both the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. Large freight trucks carry in stores and supplies and back load timber, sheep, &c. And so the settler, though his life may be somewhat more exacting than that of a South Canterbury farmer, has this in common with him—ready road access to commercial centres. Going to town has not always been so easy. Until 1937 the road went as far as Weheka, and because of the war it has advanced only forty miles since then. Much of the land around and north of the Fox Glacier was broken in when only a pack-track led out to Ross and Hokitika. At Weheka itself the fertile flats were first settled only about fifty years ago when, after the gold rush at Gillespie’s Beach, some of the diggers foresaw the possibilities of farming the deltas of the Fox, Cook, and Karangarua Rivers. The heavy virgin bush had to be cleared from the land and homes established under conditions of exceptional difficulty miles from any of the amenities even then regarded as essential to ordinary existence At first access was mainly by sea and very occasional because of conditions which still hamper shipping on the Coast. Because of this irregularity of supplies the settlers had to be almost self-sup-porting. Gradually the bush was pushed back until to-day almost the whole of this rich plain has been opened up for sheepfarming and cattle-raising. The settlers were themselves of pioneering stock used to difficulties and isolation, but they were glad for more than economic reasons to see the road move slowly south. The fear of accident was always present, and the sick and wounded had to be carried out on a stretcher over pack-tracks for many miles before they could be transferred to a dray. Mothers carried their fortnightold babies in from Hokitika on horseback. One pioneer mother with a family of twelve never bothered about the Hokitika nursing home. And all this was not back in 1850, but after the turn of the twentieth century.

To-day there is a prosperous happy community at Weheka. The cleared flats with their plentiful shelter-belts run out from the foothills to the sea, and at the foot of the glacier a compact settlement clusters round the hostel. There is a school, a church, a hall, a Public Works office and depot, a Railways Road Services garage, a store, a butcher’s shop with a freezing-chamber, an electric-power plant which supplies all the settlement —all the amenities and conveniences of a small township. For this remarkable transformation in a matter of fifty years those who had the courage and foresight to develop this isolated area must be given full credit. Behind their homes rise most of the 10,000 ft. peaks in the main divide, with Cook and Tasman standing supreme. The bush runs down literally to the back-door. Yet, though Miss Kavan pities them because of “ all the hoary, enormous, spectral trees standing massed against them and getting them down ” and though she hates to think of “ the huge mass of nature bearing down upon them,” it must be recorded that they seem strangely unafraid of the “ ocean, the ice-cap, and the antique, forest,” rather proud of them in fact, and undoubtedly happy in their work. It is some fifty miles south of Weheka that the backblocks really begin. The road runs south to Bruce Bay and then on to the Paringa River, where it crosses a long white concrete bridge and comes to a halt in front of a wall of forest and a tangle of hills. At Bruce Bay there is a settlement, a sawmill, a sheltered harbour, and facilities for loading timber. After the war the white-pine from this area may again be shipped north, but at the moment there is little for the locals to do except maintenance work at the mill, a little boatbuilding, and some black-sanding on the beach. In the season Paringa is the headquarters of the white-baiters who net the fish in this and other handy rivers.

From Paringa south the road lapses back into a pack-track and for passengers and smaller items of freight the usual access is by air. From the air the difficult nature of the country is obvious. The Alps are only a few miles inland, and the tumbled hills that fall from the mountains are covered with virgin forests and split by creeks and rivers which are often unfordable in the springtime melt. For forty miles south from the end of the road there is only this wild mass of mountain and bush running right down to the rocky coast. There is timber here in quantity, but on the extent of the worth-while forests the South-Westlanders and the State Forest Service differ considerably. Mica deposits have been found here and a track is being cut in through the bush. There are traces of other minerals, too, including gold and coal, but competent and extensive geological survey is needed to prove the location and extent of deposits. In such difficult country this would be long and arduous work. Suddenly the hills fall away into a valley which stretches back to the Alps. This valley carries the chief river of South Westland—the Haast. Beside the wide river-bed the aeroplane drops down on to a large landing-field, well drained and protected from river erosion. Beside the aerodrome is the home of one of the pioneers of the Haast, Mr. Cron. He has raised cattle here for many years and driven them out over a hundred miles of track and road to market. Through the gap in the mountains at the head of the valley will come the longawaited link with Otago, the Haast Pass Road. The Pass (1,840 ft.), is the lowest

route through the Alps and the road is already over the top, though there remains about forty miles of difficult country down which the road must come to the aerodrome on the coast. The country from the Haast south is less broken but still heavily wooded. There are patches of cleared land and swamp to break the fireside-rug effect of the variegated greens of the forest. Wider and more placid rivers frequently divide the enveloping carpet of bush. And there are rare houses dotted over the patches of cleared land. On one of these clearings the plane lands, skimming in over the tall forest to touch down on good, firm turf and taxi round to the front of the homestead. It sounds somewhat of a contradiction in terms to talk of a pioneer with an aerodrome at his front door. This is a recent luxury. Until a few years ago the only means of getting in and out of Okuru was by horse or by boat. This isolation and the achievement of having made a living and reared a family in so remote a spot entitle Mr. and Mrs. W. D. Nolan and their fellow-settlers to a term usually reserved for those who opened up New Zealand about the middle of last century. As the roads spread throughout the country, if not the earliest pioneers at least their families knew the comfort and safety of relatively rapid communications. But the settlers of South Westland still have no road link with the outside world, and but for the comparatively recent air service they would still be compelled to ride the long, uncomfortable, and often dangerous miles to the nearest motor road. Either that

or depend on the uncertain steamer. This was the way the sick and accident cases went out to Hokitika and the way the wives of the settlers carried their babies back. Air Travel, Ltd., of which the late Captain Mercer was the promoter, has brought the social isolation of South Westland to an end (on plane days you can read The Press at the lunch table), but to develop its economic and scenic possibilities roads are still needed. The aeroplane brings regular mail and small but essential items of freight. It means that business trips can be done in reasonable time, that a holiday can be taken occasionally, that technicians and tradesmen can get in and out, and, most important of all, that the sick can be evacuated to hospital speedily or a doctor brought in when necessary. Some years ago these people were their own doctors and dentists. Mr. Nolan, or “ Dinny ” as he is known the length of the Coast, has stitched up a gash in his own leg with a darning-needle and he has drawn many an aching tooth with a pair of forceps given him by a dentist years ago. Thus he can, and does, discuss the technical angle of toothextraction with some authority. The aeroplane has changed all that. Now the settlement farthest south, Jackson’s Bay, is within two hours flying

time of Hokitika. Life is still fairly strenuous, however. The Nolan homestead was built from timber felled and sawn on the spot, and when there are any additions to be made to a building or a shed to be erected there is always the bush “just down the road” and the mill beside it. The homestead is big and comfortable, and has all the amenities of any city flat. A Diesel plant supplies ample electricity and there is every modern gadget to make the women’s work easier. No one will deny that they deserve them. Across the aerodrome is another homestead, the sawmill which can handle large-size logs, and a canning-factory which not only cans whitebait in the season but also makes the tins. Naturally there is a fair amount of complicated machinery about the place and naturally it breaks down on occasions. Then the farmer turns mechanic and, if possible, sets it going again. It’s not much use waiting for an expert to get down from Hokitika two hundred miles away, even if you could get him in a hurry. You can’t ring. All messages go out by wireless from Jackson’s Bay. So these ingenious people become electricians, motor mechanics, sawmillers, Diesel engineers, cannery operators, fishermen, and farmers as necessity demands.

Cattle-raising is the main industry and some fine mobs go out to Wataroa sale and Ross railway-yards. It takes six weeks to drive them out from Okuru along bush tracks, across rivers, and finally by road to the market. But deer are menacing the pastures, and unless they can be culled satisfactorily the future of the cattle industry is not too bright, according to some settlers. They are menacing the stands of timber, too, by eating away the undergrowth about the trees. Some residents declare that the bush where it was once impenetrable is now more like a pine forest. Reading will help to solve this problem. As the Haast Pass Road has climbed over the top of the pass the pastures handy to the road have become almost as lush as they were many years ago before the deer began to eat them back. Roading makes deer-stalking easier work, and the quarry have withdrawn into less accessible country.

There was a cheese-factory at Okuru fifteen years ago and its cheese was graded first quality in England. They milked one hundred and fifty cows there then, but lack of access crippled the infant industry and the factory closed down. Now some of the settlers are turning their eyes towards the sea rather than to the land. There is money in whitebait, both fresh and canned. One family caught and canned many tons of it last season. Admittedly the run of the fish was phenomenal last year, but the old heads think that there is a future in canning the blue

cod caught along the coast and the crayfish of which there are thousands in Jackson’s Bay. Timber is the subject of much argument. The expert’s survey of the amount of millable timber is far more conservative than that of the local enthusiasts. Still, what timber is available will be most valuable in industry (most of it is white-pine), and when the road is through to Jackson’s Bay, where there is a wharf and the best harbour on the Coast, it can be felled and

shipped out from there. The roads were under way when the war began. Even now there is not a lot to be done to link the Haastwith Jackson’s Bay, a distance of thirty-five miles. The rivers have been well bridged (two bridges are yet to be completed) and the road links between them are almost finished. The work of bridging the Haast—a two-year job—and carrying the road through to Paringa along the surveyed route is more formidable. It is likely that the connection with Otago will be completed first. When both roads are open—and the settlers hope that this will be soon after the war—not only will some promising country be opened up, but the round trip of the South Island will be possible. From the scenic and tourist angle the new road will be amongst New Zealand’s best and the indirect benefit to South Westland will be considerable.

“ Nolan’s Cooee ” —a stick of gelignite used to attract the ferryman or anyone else hidden by the all-enveloping forests—is not heard in South Westland these days. When the new roads are opened that ingenious signal will be only a distant echo of the old days. But to those who pioneered the last of New Zealand’s backblocks even such a distant echo will awake memories of flooded rivers forded on horseback. It will remind them also that dreams do sometimes come true.