MILFORD IN WINTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 305, 26 December 1928, Page 5

MILFORD IN WINTER.

WORKMEN'S HARDSHIPS.

BUILDING THE HOSTEL.

SHORTAGE OF FOOD.

Those who enjoy the luxury of the splendid new hostel at Milford Sound little think of the perils and privations undergone by the workmen who erected it, >ays the "Southland Times." Cut oil' from civilisation and medical aid, soaked during the day and in damp bunks at night, living" on tinned food until this ran short and they faced starvation, constantly harassed by sandHies, these men from Greymouth stuck heroically to their task until in the majestic Sound there arose a building i" which generations of tourists will receive the comfort and service of a metropolitan hotel. All through the long winter the men toiled at Milford. When spring came their task grew a little more pleasant, but the hours of work grew longer. During the last few weeks they were working from <i a.m. to 9 p.m. Now the majority of them are back in their . homes at <irevmouth.

At Te Anaii Hotel a reporter heard the story of their experiences at Milford. There was no reason to think that they were romancing. Their faces, the way their clothes hung on them, and" the meal they made at the hotel that evening spoke eloquently of a very hard winter.

"Look, that's how much 1 have to catch up," said one.to the reporter, showing the big difference between the girth of his trousers and that of his body. Another declared that he had lost two stone. One and all agreed that if they had known what they had to face they would never have tackled the job. Not Even a Cold. "We thought a good many of us would find a grave beside Sutherland's," was the way one of them put it. *"There were many days when we were soaked through and we had to crawl between damp blankets at night, for we could not get them dry. Sometimes we were working nearly up to our chins in water hauling timber out of a lagoon. It is a marvel that some of us did not get ill. There would have been little chance for us if we had, as we were cut off from everything. Marvellous to say, none of us even got a cold. 1 don't know how it was, but we must be pretty tough or the climate very healthy." The workmen were most emphatically of the opinion that tinned food was no good for hard work. Although they managed to keep going, they said they felt very weak, and would have given anything for fresh meat and vegetables. But the monotony of tinned meat was only trifling compared with the very real danger of starvation they had to face. Owing to a combination of circumstances, including the unavoidable delay through bad weather in the arrival of the Tutanckai, the provisions grew alarmingly short. When matters grew desperate a party set out for the Quinton huts, and enough stores were taken from there to last a while longer. To further help matters some of the men went out after wild cattle. Two of these were shot and cooked. It was a very excited lot of men that sat down to what they fondly expected to be their first decent meal at Milford. Alas for their hopes —the beef turned out to be so tough that they could not stick a fork into it. Supplies came at last and the danger was passed. But the monotony of tinned food remained until the end. Sandflies Maddening. The maledictions cast upon tinned food by the men were nothing to the curses they bestowed on the sandflies. I They could not imagine a greater torture than working with sandflies biting every exposed part. Hands scarred with countless bites were held out for inspection. "Some of us almost went mad with them." remarked a young carpenter. '•Whenever we began to work the sandflies would settle on our hands until they were black. If you brushed the swarm off your hand was covered in blood. Some of us tried wearing veils and gloves, but that was not always possible. I know I felt like jumping up and running about screaming, so maddening were they. Others used to work 1 their arms in their sleep, just as if they > were brushing sandflies away from their faces."

A painter remarked that to paint anything white over at Milford was rather a waste of time. A few minutes afterwards it was black with sandflies.

While carpenters were busy erecting the hostel a tractor was engaged in clearing away stumps from round the building. Wekas, pigeons- and kakas heard lor the first time the roar of an exhaust and strange epithets from the man on the tractor, for his mates declare that riding a bucking mule was child's play compared with keeping a seat on the tractor as it bounded over the rough ground. The work of clearing an area round the hostel is still proceeding. The hostel itself is practically complete in every detail, though the' official opening will not take place till near the end of January. The stumping is being carried out by four Italians, one of whom was an air force officer during the war.

"One of the hardest jobs I have ever put through," said Mr. J. A. Hart, contractor for the Milford Sound Hostel, who returned to Greyrnouth accompanied by eight of his men on Thursday (states the Christchurch "Star"). He told a reporter that owing to almost continual rain and stormy weather practically no progress could be made for five months after the contract was commenced. During the past three months, however, over forty men were working at full speed, with the result that the building was practically completed at the beginning of December. It is constructed of West Coast timber, which, with tons of other supplies, was taken south by the steamer Putiki, specially chartered. Much arduous work, badly handicapped by the weather, was entailed at the Sound, where all the material had to be landed from the steamer by boats. Referring to a recent statement regarding the prevalence of sandflies at the hostel, Mr. Hart said that the statement had been very much exaggerated. (Questioned as to* the Milford Track, he replied that it was now in splendid condition for walking parties and further improvements would be the result of topdressing, which was now being done.