Memories Of Molesworth

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30769, 5 June 1965, Page 10

Memories Of Molesworth

MR J. E. Tomlinson of Richmond, Nelson, has cause to remember Molesworth station in the centre of the South Island. He accompanied his mother and father when they went to live at Tarndale (part of Molesworth) for four years when he was quite a small boy in 1895 and he returned again as a 17-year-old musterer in 1909. Mr Tomlinson has put some of his recollections down on paper and sent them to “The Press.” His parents had been the married couple at Woodbank station when they were asked to go to Tarndale—these were all Acton-Adams properties at the time. The writer must have been only about three years old at the time. For part of the distance he and his sister were carried on horseback in front of Bert and George Boddington, members of a family with a long record of service in the high country including Molesworth—Robert Boddington was manager of the station for many years. A Mrs Nicholls was housekeeper at Tarndale at the time—one of those remarkable back-country women whose skills extended to shoeing a horse and killing a sheep. Mr Tomlinson says that part of the lease of Tarndale and the Rainbow required that the house be kept open for travellers.

As a boy at Tarndale Mr Tomlinson recollects having seen many well built cages lying around and later when he was a musterer he saw more on some of the flats. These were some of the cages in which cats were brought from around Christchurch, purchased for Is each and intended to keep the rabbits down.

When the Tomlinsons moved to Tophouse the old hands, among them Robert Boddington, continued to visit them and Robert said that the writer would be his head shepherd one day. So after a year’s experience with sheep and dogs on the Lake station the young Tomlinson applied for a job and was accepted and off he went to join the musterers on Tarndale, taking along with him five dogs.

He recalls that after lunching at the Rainbow he rode up through the gorge. “I thought that no-one would go up those 2000 to 3000 ft of rocks and shingle looking for sheep, but I was soon to find out.”

The next day he rode out to join the musterers at the

head of the Wairau. They were living in canvas tents with four men to a tent and tussocks for their bedding. Of his first day out he writes: “Watty rattled his tin dish about 2 a.m. We got up and washed at the creek, rolled our swags by candle, had breakfast of chops and bread, cut some lunch, let our dogs loose and took off up the creek in the dark. Not much was said. We got on top just as it was getting daylight. The sun's rays were on a few of the eastern peaks. A more dismal sight would be hard to find. We were looking straight down into Canyon creek—dark gulches, bluffs and waterfalls stretching several thousand feet below us to the Rainbow flat below. . . . “I was told to go down and sidle round below Mt. Iris, then known as the Black Mount, and meet the others coming down the Pask river. I was not told what to do with any sheep that I might see—it was not expected that I would get any I found out later. I had not gone far when I walked on top of about 50 Merino wethers coming out of a small hollow. I had two dogs in front of them before they realised what had happened. They did not take kindly to being driven without a run, as most high country musterers know. But I drove them down hill in the shingle and the dogs gave them plenty of room so that they could not do much.

“They were just starting to go all right when Arthur Goff and George Carter came up waving and whistling saying that they had to take the sheep. I was a bit annoyed as I had not been told to hand over sheep to anyone, but as they were older men I hunted the sheep down to them and did not look to see what happened . . . They put a noisy dog on the top side. It gave a few barks and the sheep took off (the young Tomlinson picked these sheep up again the next day) . . . “After a while I saw a mob of perhaps 40 wethers standing in a shingle face about 30 chains or more away. They looked like vegetable sheep. 1 knew they were watching me (the other musterers) and 1 did not know whether to start the bitch as she would bark and frighten them away or give the kelpie a go as he had never run on shingle before. I decided on the kelpie and he made a wonderful underneath head and gently pulled them until I got the bitch

around—so that was two mobs in one day.” Mr Tomlinson recalls that when he joined the other musterers he was surprised to find that they had collected few sheep, and that night after tea there was talk about his heading dog and what a good run he had made “I did not say it was the first good run he had ever done,” Of other aspects of station life Mr Tomlinson writes: “there were tailing yards on most blocks and we used scrim, perhaps 4ft high and a chain in length held by two men to keep the lambs from breaking when they were near the yards. “We went into Molesworth for Christmas. There were nearly 100 men there with shearers and wool scour men. Drink was only allowed on the place at Christmas and there seemed to be plenty about. There were a few fights and arguments but nevertheless a memorable time.

“The drovers put 4000 Merino two-tooth wethers in Richmond Dale yards overnight after Christmas. It started to snow and rain next morning when they left. They crossed the Saxon and Severn rivers to Sedgemere paddock where about six inches of snow fell. In the morning they were all dead except about 200—a big loss of young sheep.

“We had 23,000 ewes and lambs on Isolated hill to keep boundary on. The river was in flood so we put them across the swing bridge over the Severn at a bit over a thousand an hour. We got 13,000 across the first day. “Tex Mouat, Bill Marshall and I went to Culverden with a mob of cull ewes. I think we got 9s and 3s for them. There were about 5000 sheep at the sale.” Mr Tomlinson said that wages amounted to 35s a week with 10s extra for Sunday work. Rations included 11b of butter per man per week. Potatoes were allowed when they were at the station. “We were fairly well fed —pea soup, dried fruit, rice, tapioca, date scones. . . . In 1909-1910 Mr Tomlinson says that two wool bales were dumped into the size of one by hydraulic press for ease of transport. A lot of the wool he says, was scoured. Two wool waggons took about 25 dumped bales each. They were drawn by eight horses and in bad spots they helped each other.