DUVAUCHELLE, HEAD OF THE BAY

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23053, 22 June 1940, Page 15

DUVAUCHELLE, HEAD OF THE BAY

WHEN Barry’s Bay wharf Tell into disrepair the new head of the bay wharf came into its own. The John Anderson and Cygnet came regularly and as they passed the gap in Onawe (which is not the cutting but a lower natural formation), the captain blew the whistle lustily and as the steamer passed on we got one short glimpse of the masts and funnel. Then we set off to collect opr goods quickly, otherwise sometimes it was done for us. During the last war several times I hitched an old draught horse in the dray and drove over for petrol and stores! A slow, rough trip, but

WRITTEN FOR THE PREiiP.) . [By BfiTHIA LATTER 1

1 certainly had time to admire the scenery. That same old horse was in great demand by budding motorists on the Hill Top road, to whom both road and cars were new. They would persist in driving into the horseshoe bend and not round it. It was a common experience to see a heated and dishevelled motorist hurrying up the drive to borrow old Dandy to pul', out the car. Sometimes I thought I saw Dandy's pendulous underlip tremble as if he smiled at their plight and their need of a mere horse. If he happened to be snigging , logs or sledging stores to grass seeders, or hay-making, off he had to go to pull the cars out. On the Onawe side of Duvauchelle Bay conger eels lurk in the crevices

of the rocks, an excellent fish which, the fishermen’s wives stuff and bake. Rock cod is also caught Off the wharf, but not now in numbers. We also got fishing at Duvauchelle on a warm summer’s day. When the tide was flowing and when the old home lay drenched in sunshine and the smell of the roses filled the air, the telephone would ring and the head Of the bay storekeeper would pass the word, “Garfish!” W e hud a car by then, and at once we loaded it with garfish net, petrol tins, and our visitors, if any. Then we would go eyes out on another fishing expedition. The foreshore at Duvauchelle at that time was covered with a green marine weed-like grass. On .this the garfish fed, myriads of them. They leapt over the side as the net was hauled. Delicious fish with a swofdflsh-like snout. When we sent them any distance to friend? we stripped the green weed out of them just as one strips trout and so preserved their delicate whiteness. They tell me the weed has gone and the garfish too. The foreshore is now strewn with rubbish. Gone, too, have the storekeeper and others.

I was awakened early by a lusty and far from musical male chorus. There in the drive was an old moke in a dray and on the dray was a piano plus the Duvauchelle storekeeper, the surveyor, and the county clerk. They had driven over to serenade us. Duvauchelle is head of the bay to all old residents of Banks Peninsula. It really is head of Akaroa Harbour with its hotel (the only one between Hill Top and Akaroa), its saleyards, church, store, and Post Office; it is really a,little township from which winds the road to the Pigeon Bay saddle. In earlier days all the regular mails from surrounding nearby bays were taken up to the Pigeon Bay coach. The postmistress of Barry’s Bay, one Mrs Tom le Comte, walked up with her mail every mail day, rain or shine. Duvauchelle was represented at the Akaroa centennial celebrations by many descendants of esteemed pioneer families. They came from afar to meet childhood friends and to honour the memory of parents and grandparents who had loved and lived and passed away in the ’ settlement.