FIRST SHIP IN EIGHT YEARS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22635, 14 February 1939, Page 10

FIRST SHIP IN EIGHT YEARS

Gael Galls at Okarito TIMBER FOR k NORTH ISLAND IFrom Our Own Reporter.] GREYMOUTH, February 13. Hopes that the Okarito Harbour, 66 miles by sea south of Greymouth, beilore long will rank once again as an for much of the trade of South (•Westland received distinct encourageimcnt when on Saturday the first ship (lor eight years, the motor-vessel Gael, of 63 tons, entered the port. She left again the same day for Wellington direct, with a record cargo of 32,000 super feet of black pmo timber for the exhibition buildings. For nearly four years, improvements have been carried on by the Okarito Harbour Company, the only private body controlling a port in the Dominion. to restore the entrance and the channel to a condition which would allow vessels to trade there. Although it was two hours after high tide when the Gael entered, no difficulty in navigation was met with. Her outward passage eight hours afterwards was also uneventful. The master of the Gael (Captain Albert _Tregidga) expressed his complete satisfaction with the facilities at the wharf Jfor handling the timber, which had , been cut at the Lake Wahapo mill, j seven miles away, and conveyed by ; lorry to skids on the wharf. The cargo ' was loaded in exceptionally good time ;by the staff of the mill. Considerable j interest throughout South Westland I was taken in the shipment, and a large I number of persons from the surroundI ing district watched the departure of the Gael. “We hope that this will be the forerunner of regular shipments,” Mr W. Soutcr, managing director of the Okarito Harbour Company, told a reporter of “The Press” to-day, “but there is nothing deftniie to be said yet, We would be shipping more timber immediately but for a glut of white pine in the North Island. In the meantime, we will have to sit down and wait. The harbour is not suitable for overseas shipping, so we are dependent on the North Island market, which is under Government control.” Several shillings for 100 feet had been saved in transport charges on the Gael’s cargo, Mr Souter said, compared with charges which would have been incurred had it been sent by lorry and train to Hokitika or Greymouth, as is usual, tjie latter town being 110 miles north ,by road. Okarito was a fairly busy, port, with a population of about 5000 persons in the latter part of last century. Then the inhabitants were almost exclui sively gold prospectors, who met with 1 great success, for it was reliably * estl- ■ mated that more than £1.000,000 worth of gold was won in the district, chiefly (from the vast deposits of black sand. To-day. however, the population is not [more than 20 persons, mostly engaged 'in farming, and the township, once a 1 roaring camp, now boasts one store and one hotel. Five miles away Is a well-known gold dredge, which employs 15 men, and which is winning much gold from the black sands of the beach. Okarito. too, taps a large and fertile tract of the country of South Westlapd, reaching to Jackson’s Bay, in the far south, and the flourishing towpship, Wataroa, on the road to the Franz Josef and To--: Glaciers, is but 13 miles away by ro::..l. -