A Sturdy Pioneer

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 202, 23 May 1936, Page 19

A Sturdy Pioneer

In these days of good roads and mechanised transport there are few of us who would care to set out to walk from Wellington to Napier, or to cross Cook Strait in a canoe, yet not many years ago this was a common occurrence. Only last year there died a relative of mine who, as a boy of 15, crossed from Collingwood to Kapiti in a Maori canoe. From there he went to Wellington, and then set out to walk to Waipukurau (Clive), near Napier. He crossed the harbour entrance on the ferry from Seatoun and went round the coast to Lake Walrarapa. Thence via Masterton and the Forty-Mile Bush to his destination He had many exciting experiences on the trip, and bartered his shirt to the Maoris at Waipawa to ferry him across the river, which was in flood. When he was passing through the bush which once stood between Mangatiritere and Clive, he heard the sound of guns being fired nearby,, and thought the. Maoris must have been shooting pigeons. However, he found on reaching Clive that the Maoris were fighting, and news later arrived that the chief, Pupara, had been killed, and Hapuku driven out from the Heretaunga district. After a long and adventurous life, this fine old man died at nearly ninety years of age, so apparently he was none the worse for the above and other experiences of hie younger days.—SJ. (Wellington).