THE WHITCOMBE PASS

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26515, 1 September 1951, Page 3

THE WHITCOMBE PASS

SAMUEL BUTLER’S DISCOVERY ISpeciatlv for - The PreM » by JOHN PASCOE} V Hu?’ in* S ’‘Th*Pre«” Sam T el Butler ’ s Mr D Wan M-ii ress on June 16 last the unpublished" ditry Whn r c y omb t e tS pass°'trom a th P e ot R k* W tb ® the history of 1 h^ ve foll °wed travelled ! much ® xpl ° ratlon s and I was interested TOU ntry on foot, dence and fln , d , to e . xamine the evisaw Browning p Onv l nce d that Potts tnrnn u° wn . Rg s Pa BB from the Wilber ma H d e % it i t\ Jan “ ar y-®ua^, W l h 8 e 61 19 A o P f r iL^ : o^ e d Party left the head tarv \ e dge ' eroded a tnbuan/d now known as the Harper) They were held the Rakaia bed '” three‘days.* 11 " by bad 23 *? ine mor ning ... W e all bed° U Th f e Or a . Walk up the Rakaia bed. The waterfalls were very "o£se°Wi ” ' We c °ntinued !ur course till we arrived opposite a Uo™ that °£ "d Very grea * eleva ” uon, that stands, as it were in what r of er t b he d > K presents some" cone *Thk e , f ° rm oi / de P r essed Here ♦ho ll Tj'u. e name d Sebastopol. fil b. he ? akala is divided into not Ranches whose sources could the s Vof ft 8 ? 1 ? jUdginß f r“m height A, the streams and the branches* th! moun ‘ ains - Of these west i! ’th» e , one bearing to the tam the h ,ar gest. On looking whkh the T r ? W Valley trough wmcn the centre stream flows n! er^j apP L? rs be a pass at very feet" btwhi elev^ ion ' about 3000 tetoed b «? # ? uld not be ascerthe sudden Ct conse qnence of were cn!? clo ,V ds and mists that ppntmually enveloping the when Ti mmits -” Further rain camp h the party returned to. 25 *° » orlh «' Lata* S’.' parties are innSi„„ ? rll, 186 o: various eolrifieMv lookmg for a pass to the whfch we n!m!d M ° Unt Sebastopol, month. ’’ We d nln e years ago (his “Ttekata” that Potts ’ naKaia is the Wilberforce are these: (1) Witt l re 4 plentiful in the Wilberforce but not the Rakaia ® ■» (3) Mount Sebastopol is mapped w i! he u w dberforce west of the Weka branch of the Burnet tribu<4) o ount Sebastopol is as Potts described it. The five rivers he saw are respectively the Unknown, Gibson, berforce and Burnet streams, and h S C . e J ltr . e str eam, the Wilberforce, ihi! Browning’s Pass vislole at its head, and was later used goldfields o^"s t 0 0,6 West Coast exceedingly grateful to Mr MacMillan for allowing me to use parts of Potts’ diary to clear up there topographical niceties, in °f mterest to reiterate a short chronology of Butler’s Rangi-tata-Rakaia explorations with John Holland Baker. They left the Mesopotamia hut on December 29, iB6O and journeyed up the Havelock branch of the Rangitata, made a dangerous ford with a good ducking and were blocked by high glaciated mountains. They returned to Mesopotamia. On January 8, 1861 they tried the Clyde branch of the Rangitata but again were beaten by high country, and went up the Lawrence branch of the Clyde as an alternative. The next day they made good progress up the Lawrence but were camp bound on January 10 by a storm. On January 11 they climbed what is now known as Butler’s Saddle from which they saw that they were not on the main divide. Their consolation was that they had a clear view to the north across the Rakaia valley to the Whitcombe Pass. They descended to their horses in the Lawrence and again to Mesopotamia. On January 31 they journeyed from Mesopotamia to Lake Heron and on February 1 reached the Rakaia by the lake stream. On February' 3 they crossed the Whitcombe Pass, its first discovery, but finding no sheep country and being barred bv the gorges and rain forest of the Whitcombe river in Westland they retraced their route down to the Rakaia, reaching Lake Heron on February 4. The sequel was that Henry Whitcombe and Jacob Louper in April, 1863, made the first complete transalpine crossing of the Whitcombe Pass to Westland and suffered many privations. Whitcombe drowned in a flood crossing of the Taramakau, and Louper returned to Canterbury over the Harper Pass. Thus, the early history of Canterbury exploration is one of persistence in the face of treacherous rivers with the rewards of new sheep country.