Air Link Saved Many

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30887, 21 October 1965, Page 2

Air Link Saved Many

Though road access to the north will remove the last barrier of isolation from Haast to Jackson’s Bay, settlers themselves say aviation brought the real break-through.

The air service from Hokitika. pioneered by the late Mr J. C. Mercer in 1934, and earlier emergency flights made by the Nolan family from their own airstrip at Oamaru, saved lives.

In the tough, pioneering days of South Westland, it was not uncommon for settlers to die because doctors could not reach them in time or because stretcher parties were not fast enough in relaying a patient through the bush and cattle tracks to medical help. Ship Or Horse Women expecting babies had to rely on an irregular

shipping service from Jackson’s Bay to Grey mouth or ride by horseback to their confinements. One man, who lived in the hinterland of Cascade, delivered his wife himself. If there was a midwife anywhere in South Westland then, she was kept busy. Air travel was a godsend to women who wanted to have their children in the comfort of maternity homes at Hokitika or Greymouth. By the time Miss Noreen Kennedy of Greymouth went to Okuru as Mrs R. P. Nolan, the air service was taken for granted. Haast was on a Hokitika doctor’s itinerary and a Plunket nurse visited the district every two months. “But though I had the Plunket book to guide me between visits from the Plunket nurse, I used to drive my cousin, a Karitane nurse in Christchurch, nearly crazy with telegrams requesting information on baby care for the first of my five children,” she said, smiling at her early lack of confidence. “I suppose I was over-anxious.” Ordering Stores Long-term ordering of provisions was a problem at first for a young woman who had lived in a town near shops. Before the Otago-Haast Pass road was opened in 1960, stores came to the district by ship from Greymouth to Jackson’s Bay, more than 20 miles from Okuru.

“The ship came in about once in three months. Everyone used to drive to Jackson’s Bay the day it berthed to collect their packages; it was like a big community picnic,” she said.

She does not feel this part of Westland is remote any more, nor inconvenient for the housewife. And it is a healthy life for her schoolage children (fourth-genera-tion South Westlanders), who like nothing better than to set off with the sleeping bags and ponies when their father takes them to Cascade Valley on a 23-mile trek. Social Life

Mrs Nolan belongs to the Haast-Okuru C.W.1., which meets once a month. “There are table tennis and badminton facilities at the Haast Community Hall, where films are screened two nights and one afternoon a week,” she said. “And we have socials and dances.” Highlights of the social

year, however, are the Whitebaiters’ Ball in November and the Deerstalkers’ Ball in April, when everyone turns out and the women of the district serve a buffet banquet, which includes crayfish, whitebait or venison. This year the big event will be the ball to celebrate the opening of the new road.