ARAPUNI SETTLERS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 175, 20 April 1929, Page 26

ARAPUNI SETTLERS

THE PRESENT POSITION WHAT OF THE FUTURE? (By E.A.A.) On the road from Putaruru to Arapuni a large notice points the way to Henley on Arapuni. At present, however, this lake-side resort is little else but scrub and expectations. A little way below the dam there are definite signs of new settlements. The lake side has been cleared, sections have been divided off, and houses are springing up. There is even talk of constructing a beach. How’, was not explained to me. There can be little doubt that the time cannot be far distant when the attractions of the lake will have become known far and wide. Outboard motors w’ill scoot here and there as on Wellington Harbour, and the inhabitant of Putaruru will not be considered worthy of the name unless he has his “little batch beside the ■ lake, you know.” In the meantime it is significant that the Government Department who control the lake are getting out a series of regulations regarding the control of boating upon its surface. Across the Suspension Bridge. The .community across the suspension bridge are liable to dwindle steadily. Already one camp out of the three is practically empty. In the remainder there are some- five or six hundred souls ranging in age from toddlers of two up to father who works at the power-house. Quite a little settlement has sprung up. Invitations to take refreshment are hung from nearly every window. There is even a kinema complete with advertisements. Water and drainage have been laid on and water towers act as reservoirs for this dwindling settlement. The offices of Armstrong, Whitworth have been turned into a boardinghouse cum restaurant. I had tea I there .and watched a kitten catch blowflies and apparently enjoy eating them. As the work develops conditions will tend to become more normal. One by one the semi-permanent dwellings will disappear until, in the not far distant future, Arapuni will have shrunk to the prearranged permanent camp consisting of some eighteen bungalows and perhaps thirty or so people. Situated on their large flat plain with the bush-clad mountains across the gorge as their weather prophet, for a cap upon this mountain means rain in twelve hours, these servants of electricity will tend the huge ma-'

chines of Arapuni. Year after year, as the huge generators- ore forced round by the power in the Waikato ,to feed the demands of nearly half the North Island, the guardians of this mighty power will live, and love, and have their being, on what not ten years ago was a wild, neglected, and completely unknown waste of scrub.