"CHAIN-GANG ROAD."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 256, 29 October 1929, Page 5

"CHAIN-GANG ROAD."

A FORGOTTEN HIGHWAY.

REMAKING ASQUITH AVENUE,

MEMORIES AND TOMAHAWKS

(By "TRAMPER.")

They say that something of the great spirits who have passed hence still wanders round the spot they inhabited when on earth. If it is so with the great, one supposes it must he so with the lesser. Frequently in my tramps round about this beautiful isthmus of Auckland I had been along the old road that joins up Western Springs Road with New North Road. It is called Asquith Avenue, but I did not know that until the other day; to me it was always simply the lonely road with the stile and. the rock cutting that reminded one of Khyber Pass. It was a lonely road, but one never seemed lonely when traversing it; one always seemed to be in the presence of something unseen, but none the lees real. • It was only two days ago that I learned this was the old main highway to the north —or more precisely to the Kaipara—fcr in the old days all traffic north used to make for the Kaip.'ira and then use the many arms of that harbour ,to get to the various settlements; for of roads there were none to call by that name. Before the days of the Great North Road, which runs past the top end of Point Chevalier, past Oakley Creek, and so on to Avondale, there was a Great North Road of which Asquith Avenue was an important link. At that time the Western Springs swamp, over whica the present north road runs, compelled the road-builders to swing to the left, follow the side of the ridge, then what is now Asquith Avenue, and join up with the New North Road about a quarter of a mile on the town side or the present Mount Albert tram teri-inus.

How Did They Bo It? Asquith Avenue was made by the soldiers. so that dates it in the early 'sixties. It was known familiarly as tiie "chain-gang road," because it was made by the defaulters of an .Irish regiment. And" a spell 011 that stretch of the road to the far north must have been a most effective method of taming the wildest of wild Irishmen. The defaulters must ■ have cursed the north and the coincidence that threw them and that rocky road, together, for much of it is through solid basalt. "How on earth those men shifted some of the boulders 116 ha\e come across beats me," said one of the staff at present engaged in modernising this historic old "Some of the stones we came across," said he, "weighed seventeen hundredweight.' "Even with our modern gear we found them tough enough, and I can't think how those soldiers handled them, for handled they were: we found tjiat out by the fact'that they were packed." As soon as one turns from Western Springs Road into Asquith Avenue one feels that one is in a road with a history. It looked old, and as though it had seen busier days. Not far from the corner one comes on a quaint stile built into the stone wall alongside a gateway giving entrance to a farm. Stiles are' common enough in the Old Country, but one seldom comes across one in New Zealand. You felt that the man who built this one must have known and clambered over its prototype in some green English field. A Rock Cutting. A quarter of a mile or so further on one comes to the Khvber Pass cutting. This part of the isthmus is full of lava flows, and crossing the line of road was a fold of it, nrucli like the fold of a heavy rug or blanket. The Legree of "the "chain gang" surveyed right through the fold, and that meant a narrow .cutting with straight sides through solid rock, which necessitated much blasting powder and must have caused much bad language. The cutting is about 2-">ft high, wide enough for one cart only, and is all the more striking as in the old days the pioneers invariably followed the ridges, and eschewed anything like cuttings or fillings wherever possible. After the road past ' the Western Springs and the Stone Jug was built, Asquith Avenue (or whatever it was called half a century back) evidently fell into disuse. It has now emerged from its loneliness, and the ghosts of the chain gang have been exorcised by the operations of a team from the Mount Albert Borough Council's staff, which is tearing up the old track and putting it down as a modern full-width rofcd, with a foundation of almost Eoman solidity—there is no lack of rock in those parts—and with a bitumen surface, not to mention a strip of lawn between carriageway and footpath. It is altogether a fine piece of work, and does credit to the resident engineer (Mr. W. E. Begbie), who, by the by, is . the Youngest resident engineer in the Dominion. Relics from the Midden. When cutting through a hump of the old roadway, opposite the residence of Mr. G. if. Fowkls, not far from the New North Boad end, the workmen bisected the old low-level pa of Owairaka, and in a kitchen midden unearthed a couple of tomahawks, of the real oldfashioned shape—"trade" tomahawks, which used to be swopped by a farsighted skipper for a few score tons of dressed flax. No doubt these two, lashed ! to the end of a long handle, were used for much more personal work than chopping firewood. Another interesting find was a George IV. shilling. How did it come to be knocking round the'pa? Readers of Dr. Campbell's book, "Poenamo," will remember that in 1840, when he was trying to buy some pisrs at Onehunga. he found the Maoris very embarrassed as to what to do with some brand i.ew sovereigns they had received as their share of the sale of the site of Auckland. Perhaps the owner of this George IV. "bob" was equally at a loss. The midden where these articles were found was about Bft thick, and judging from the amount of pipi shell, must have been a very great age.

In Peace and War. Owairaka is also the name of Mount Albert. It appears that the Maoris who inhabited this part of the isthmus liau two pas. On the flat they lived on the rising ground the roadmakers cut through, as it was in the middle of fine kumara ground, and the pipi beds were ■not far off. That was in time of peace. When a taua (war party) showed up, the tribe would move off to the stror.-'ly-fortified pa 011 the top of Mount Albert, whence it would enjoy one of the most delightful views of the isthmus—and m»o be as safe as a medieval baron and Ms retainers in keep of tbe baronial castle.

If flic pilosis of the chain-gang have not been disturbed by the blasting operations of the 1929 gang, and the very modern roadway that is being put down, the rapid way the street is tilling up with houses during the past two decades would leave no room whatever for the spirits of those tough old privates, When that narrow, high .cutting through the fold of lava at the other end of tha road is widened out to full 110 doubt the last of the ghosts will take up another hole in his belt and stalk off to —Conan Dovle only knows where,