ARTHUR'S PASS

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21288, 6 October 1934, Page 15

ARTHUR'S PASS

NOTES ON ITS PLACE NAMES (specially writtek fob the pbbss.) [By R. S. ODELL.I VIII. KELLY'S CREEK: In the earliest day of the West Coast road a Mr Kelly kept a store with a conditional license (the license was issued in 1865) at this creek, and the creek shared his name. When the coaches began to run the store became the Otira Hotel and was a changing house for the coaches. It was always well known for its signboard which read "Otira Hotel kept by Kelly, where man and beast may fill their belly." The hotel was burnt down about 1870, when a man named Joe Pike had it.

KELLY'S RANGE: The range which run.-; parallel to Kelly's Creek on the north side and which forms part of the park boundary also assumed the name of Kelly, as did the saddle on it and the hill which forms its gable end. Quartz reefs are to be found on the Kelly Range, and 40 years ago a considerable sum of money was spent in tunnelling and prospecting for gold there; but, as one old-timer put it, "It was like looking for a flea in a blanket." KENNEDY FALL: A particularly fine waterfall drops into the Mingha Valley from the east side. By aneroid measurement it is 800 feet high, and it has a considerable volume of water. It resembles the Devil's Punchbowl Fall, but, though it is higher, has not quite the same beauty, since it is not set in bush-clad hills. A cloak of sub-alpine shrubs clothes the cliffs over which it falls. The stream which feeds it rises in a large combe on the side of Mt. Oates. The Mountaineering Club party which explored the Mingha Valley named this fall after Mr W. A. Kennedy, a well known mountaineer, who has for many years been associated with Arthur's Pass. His first visit to the district was in the 'eighties and he has been there almost every year since, climbing and photographing. As a mountaineer he is known chiefly by his pioneer work in the Godley region; but he has done much climbing around Mt. Cook also. He has to his credit the first and only ascent of Mt. Brodrick, a climb which took 27 hours. Mr Kennedy is a member of the Arthur's Pass National Park Board and is the president of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club. KILMARNOCK FALL: Falling into the White Valley from the cliffs of Mt. Davie is the water of the Kilmarnock Fall. The stream has sprung from a glaciated basin on the mountain, from which it makes a five hundred foot leap, an unbroken column of living white marble. In the winter and the spring there is always accumulation of ice at its foot, brought down from the glacier basin above. Mr Jas. O'Malley, of the Bealey Glacier Hotel, who once used to take parties up the White River to see the glaciers, hid a bottle of brandy at the foot of the fall to meet cases of emergency. He referred to the fall thereupon as Kilmarnock, after the brand of the liquor. This was about 1900. Many people have looked for the bottle since, for it is adding years and quality to its contents, but it is feared the secret of its hiding place was lost when Mr O'Malley died in 1930.

KLONDYKE HUT: This hut was built on the Bealey Flat and the flat itself is now often called Klondyke. When the Bealey Hotel was shifted from the north side of the Waimakariri to the south, the hut was built for the benefit of tramps and others who might be benighted on the north side or held up by bad weather in a flood. The hut was well equipped with blankets and utensils, but was not kept stocked with food. One man who reached it expecting to find a meal was so chagrined that In took some chalk and wrote the word "Starvation" across the hut. This was about the time of the Klondyke gold rush when "Klondyke" was synonymous with "Starvation." Hence a man who happened to be that way with a paint brush was inspired to paint the word "Klondyke" across the word "Starvation" in big letters. It was very obviously the Klondyke Hut. A gruesome story is told of it concerning a dead Chinaman. He was drowned in the Bealey and was put in the single bunk of the Klondyke Hut while the police went off to make arrangements about the body. It was a stormy night and a man who was, well, not quite drunk, decided not to risk crossing the river, and so turned in beside the sleeping figure. In the morning he awoke late and the sun was shining high, so he thought he would arouse his companion too. He left the hut in a hurry.

MINGHA RIVER: The Mingha is the chief tributary of the Bealey and was, in fact, once known as the north branch of the Bealey. A more correct name would have been east j branch, since the Bealey /lows north j and south. Whether O'Halloran, who drove the goats up it (see Goat Pass), or George Dobson, who explored it, went up the river first, is not known, but both of them did it in 1865, and George Dobson called the pass at the head of it Goat Pass, so they must have gone up it within a short time of each other. Since then there is no record of anyone's having gone up the river until the Mountaineering Club party penetrated the valley at Christmas, 1929, and before this there was no map of the Mingha region, so the geographical data brought back by the party were most useful.

The river takes its rise in the basin below the Blimit and Mt. Temple, which it leaves over a fall of some two hundred feet. It flows I eastward, parallel with the Divide for about two miles, until, when opposite Goat Pass, it turns sharply to the south. It soon receives the waters of the Kennedy Fall, and then plunges into its gorge. Here it swirls madly against the rocks, leaps over cliffs, hurtles wildly down cataracts, and flows still and deep against its enclosing walls, leaving no way untried that will make it inaccessible; and this done, it flows in an valley for the

last two miles before it joins the B The y, name Mingha was given to it about 1890. Mrs Robert Wilson. writing in "The Land of the Tui. Sys: "The north branch of the Bealey has been re-named and is now called after me to which I should have objected had there not been a decidedly Maori ring about mv name, Mingha." Mr James O'Malley said that he was responsible for the change in name, and that he went across with Mrs Wilson to where little Lake O'Malley used to be, in the fork between the Mingha and the Bealey. Mrs Wilson was the wife of Robert Wilson, who wa, engineer-in-chief and manager of the Midland Railway Company. At the mouth of the Mingha, and continuing for about half a mile up it, is a cutting which was made when it was intended that the railway should cross the Mingha, and then proceed to the east side of the Bealey. The upper part of the Mingha was once known as the Goat River, and a Maori version of it was Koeti River. These names appeared on some Westland County lithographs. There is, however, no separate part for these names to refer to. The members of the Mountaineering Club'partv were B. Wyn Irwin, C. E. Fenwick. C. W. Evans, and J. D. Pascoe. Their work was kept to a minimum by eight days' incessant rain.

McGRATH'S CREEK: The large creek which enters the Bealey River from the West above the township of Arthur's Pass is known as McGrath's Creek, and is named after a road contractor who built the section about here when the second road was put through. The first road continued up the bank of the Bealey River as far as the White Bridge. There used to be a hotel near here, kept by a Mr Butler. f, A story thai is told concerns one Bill Harris who had a hut there in the late 'sixties. The hut was one of those that had a wide corrugated iron chimney, and a tramp thought that it was wide enough to climb into, and tried. Unfortunately for him he got caught on a cross bar and could not extricate himself. Bill Harris came home, and, pretending not to notice die commotion, lit a fire and made the tramp very uncomfortable; then he tried smoking him, and finally drew the bar and let his victim fall down the chimney. The writer once had an interesting experience here, which shows the vagaries of a mountain torrent. Two stout beams across the stream made a good footbridge, and when he crossed them they were a clear two feet above the water. Not long after there were some hea"y floods, which brought down so many boulders that the bed of the creek rose and covered the footbridge. When the creek subsided the boulders began to move along and the writer saw it at the stage where the footbridge was beginning to reappenr out of the bed of the stream.

LAKE MISERY: On the summit of Arthur's Pass there is a tarn similar to the tarns on almost every other pass over the Divide from North Canterbury. It lies in a hollow between the summit of the pass and a wall of old moraine, and in this wise those other tarns also were formed. Since when it was called Lake Misery is not known, but it is referred to by this name in 1894 by Mrs Robert Wilson in "The Land of the Tui." A replica of this tarn on Walker Pass (three passes further north) was called Lake Misery by Edward Dobson, when he investigated that pass as a possible road route. A prettier name is mentioned by Miss B. E. Baughaa, who says that it is called by some Lake Misery and by others Lake Bright-Eye. In the days when cattle used to be driven over to the West Coast to feed the miners, the flat between Lake Misery and the smaller tarns used to be a cattle camp, where th«> beasts were held for the night before continuing on their journey to the Arahura yards.

xMARGARET'S TARN: A beautiful little mountain tarn on the way to the so-called Bealey Glacier was named after his eldest daughter by Mr G. E. Butler, who cut the tracks there. Above it rises Mt. Rolleston, and the beauty of the tarn is enhanced on a still morning by the reflection of the mountain.

MIDDAY CREEK: One of the small creeks which runs into the Deception River. It was named by Mr A. N. Harrop. who explored the Deception, no doubt on account of the time of the day when he arrived there. MOTTRAM PEAKS: A mountain with two peaks which can be seen when looking down the Waimakariri from the Carrington Hut has been called by members of the Mountaineering Club, Mottram Peaks. Mr H. R. Mottram was the staff surveyor of the Lands and Survey Department, who did the topographical survey of this part of the National Park, and his work was greatly appreciated by mountaineers and trampers. Mr Mottram was probably the first to ascend the Peaks, near the summit of which he established a trig. Before this name was given, the peaks were familiarly known as April Fools' Peaks, because a party which set out on April 1, 1929, to climb Mt. Gizeh at the back, missed their way in the bush and climbed on to these peaks by mistake.

MURRAY CREEK: This is one of the small streams which flow into the Otira River from the west. It was named after the roadman, Mr J. Murray, who was in the district for more than twenty years.

IHE NATIVE NAME OV MOUNT ROLLESTOX tj lhjj BDiroa or the fiut-j. Si r> —in the article on the place names of Arthur's Pass in "Ths Press" of September 29. Mr Odell states that Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson believed the native name oC Mount Rolleston to be Tara Tama. My father always spoke of it as Te-Tara-O-Tama and on looking up his diary, I find that he calls it Te-Tara-O-Tama Ahua.—Yours, etc., EDITH E. DOBSON. October 2, 1934. [Mr Odell writes: "Miss Dobson'a note is quite correct. Tara Tama is merely the abbreviated form of the name. I understand Te-Tara-A-Tama Ahua is more correct than Te-Tara-O-Tama Ahua. I do not know what considerations led to ns j being applied to the peak other j than Mount Rolleston. but it hss appeared thus on the official maps for a considerable number ci years."]