WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30900, 5 November 1965, Page 25

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

What fascinating names have the tributaries of the Haast!—Roaring Billy and Roaring Swine, Dizzy creek. Dancing creek, and Pivot creek.

It is not hard to imagine the lurid circumstances in which such names were bestowed —perhaps by the oldtime miners as they danced and pivoted from rock to rock when the creeks were up. And a Haast creek would be a roaring swine in high flood. Floods probably caused the bestowal of names such as Cache creek and Depot creek, when parties were held up. And Gout creek—too much high living on the stores? Some names are descriptive of the creeks themselves— Chink creek, Imp Grotto, Glitterburn creek, Mossy creek, Grassy creek, and Greenstone creek.

Others are named after people—Douglas creek (per-

haps after the famous Charlie : Douglas), Cron creek (pioneer settler at the Haast), Mac- ■ pherson's creek, Harris creek, and, more humbly, Joe creek. The crossing of such tributaries of the Haast is a , feature of the 40-mile up-river run to the Haast Pass. Between Haast township, and Pleasant Flat, 30 miles upstream, there are 29 bridges and 320 culverts. This bridging work was a groat swallower of reading funds. Another example, on the new Paringa-Haast link:

from the Paringa river to the Moeraki bluff (10 miles), one crosses 17 bridges between 25ft and 50ft in length, 30 large concrete culverts, and innumerable piped culverts—just one 10-mile section of the route! This is a high rainfall area —24oin at Paringa last year, and 140 in for the first half of this year. And lOin of rain has fallen in 10 minutes at Haast. Names in this area bear their own terse tale: Epitaph rift. Grave creek.