IN THE BUSH.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 151, 26 June 1912, Page 14

IN THE BUSH.

HEART OF THE MAIN TRUNK. OHAKUNE AND- RAETIHI. EIVAL TOWNS AND THEIR FORTUNES. (By Our Special Reporter.) The best way to see the most of any country is to go afoot, and this applies to the Main Trunk country as to others. But time is usually the trouble, and to see the countiy properly would take Hanger than most men could spare. Therefore, it is best to make use of what means of transport are available along the route it is intended to pursue. Quite .apart from the railway, which unfortunately, as mentioned before, does not permit the traveller to see? much of the country through which it passes, there are several coach lines branching out from various stations on the railway into the backblocks, or, perhaps, connecting the rail with some other means of communication, such as the Wanganui River, as between Raetihi and Pipiriki. From the coach .wherever it goes you can always see the main avenues of settle-, ment, and that in fairly comfortable manner. BY COACH. One of the chief coach lines is between Ohakune and Baetihi. The service includes two coaches each way a day, connecting with the two expresses from Wellington and. Auckland. The running is in the morning and at night, aB the Wellington train does not arrive from the south until after 9 o'clock. Should the night be spent at Ohakune the country between the two towns may be seen en route by the morning coach to Raetihi. Though the coach is timed to leave about 9.30 a.m., it_ seldom gets away until much later — sometimes about 11 o'clock — and there is plenty of time to look round Ohakune Tbefore the departure. ABOUT OHAKUNE. Ohakuneis one of the principal towns of_ the Main Trunk proper, and, is certainly one of the'most interesting, enterprising, and progressive. It . is . one of our youngest boroughs, and. in area- one of our largest. The force of circumstances has been against Ohakune/ Properly speaking, there should only .have been one town here ilto serve the whole district, and a great town it would have been. But instead there are three. To the east, about four miles away, there is Rangataua, a good-sized place with a progressive timber industry. To the west, some eight, ov niue miles away, is the doyen of bush townships, Raetihi, with quite a long series- of years behind it. Between the three there- is quite a considerable population. Had the Main Trunk passed through Raetihi, as was once hoped by the sturdy settlers in that township, it would have settled the ques. ' tion at once. Raetihi was "already long established, and must have secured the premiership of the district. But the railway passes Raetihi by; and it is only by a branch line it will have connection with the main route from Wellington to Auckland. Naturally, Raetihi has not forgotten how it was overlooked, and there is still a strong feeling between the two rival towns, and the feeling is duly reciprocated with interest br the third party in the triangular situation — Rangataua. NEARLY LEFT BY THE RAILWAY. Thus it is a case of " United we stand, divided," etc. Okahune itself was nearly left in the lurch by the railway. Con siderations of engineering forbade the following of earlier precedents in New Zealand railway construction.' by which the railway was made to comb to the town at all eoato. There has been no Rimu■taka or Wangaeliu mistake about the Alain Trunk. At Ohakune the mountain- (the railway) would not come to Mahomet (the town) % po a compromise hae ueen ( effected by which Ohakuno borough extends to tile station, about a couple of miles away, and Ohakuue catst with. it» temperance hotels and one or two straggling streets, represents (Jieater Ohakune visible «ver the lreetopa in the dibtauce. It is not the ideal situation for the metropolis of the South' Central Main Trunk, but when time lines tho coach road between the two Ohakuneg tuui rows of houses, perhaps, the farrier difficulties will l»o forgotten. FUOM STATION TO TOWN. The cuai'h stint* frum the etatiun aid tuna ty tuwa vvcx what was, grieg tjjg

old service road, which proved so useful in the building of the railway. Beyond the station the road has fallen into undeserved neglect, for it really ought to be maintained as the proper motoring route to Auckland. At present it runs through to Taumarunui. and then there ifl a big break before the other end is reached, somewhere about To Kuiti. But at Ohakune, between station and town, the road is subject to 6uch heavy traffic that the Borough Council has instituted a toll-gate, with a system of tolls to provide money for its upkeep. Mighty timber wagons, laden with rimu planks or scantlings, lumber along behind teams of half a dozen draught horses. A tremendous timber traffic concentrates on Ohakune, and this is simply battering the roads to pieces. Nobody could object to the toll-gate system who saw the havoc made of the roads by frequent heavy, traffic iv a wet climate. The revival of the toll-gate is indeed a feature of rural life in' 6ome parts of New Zealand to-day. The only remedy appears to be in the construction either of lig^ht railways or of such massive roads with solid foundations, that the evil effect of ponderous wagons would be greatly reduced. Probably it would be cheaper to build light railways, as the goods traffic alone would seem to promise a sufficient return to pay for upkeep and renewals. The Minister for Eailwajß appears to have this already in view. NOT UNPIGTURESQUE. The situation of Ohakune is not unpicturesque. It has the appearance of a town not artificially pre-planned, but of on© that has simply grown naturally. The approach from the station gives the passenger on the coach a capital idea of now settlement develops in the bush. Round the station areas of railway workers' houses, which might have been squeezed out of common mould, so identical are they, one with another. A couple of imposing boarding-houses, or private or temperance hotels, with still more imposing names, grace tho short street fronting the railway platform. Then the road to town strikes what might be called a "semi" country. It is not bush, it is not town, it is not country ; it's just half and half. A big sawmill alongside has its tramway running miles into its main cutting block. It has already cleared out the pay-timber in its immediate environs, .and left the struggling, skinny stumps of what was not worth cutting. The ground is littered with logs and refuse. It is the most untidy country you ever saw. Houses are scattered here and there, with little patches of gardens aniozijr the Btumps, and cows with tinkling bells" al,a 1 , their necks nose under the logs for select tit-bits in 'herbage There are actually a few of the old camp shanties of .the pioneers and railway builders about, some of them inhabited, too, as the curling blue wood 6moke shows. Amid such scenes the road swings round by unmathematical curves and bends until it crosses the new bridge, and deposits t"ne traveller in Ohakune. TEN.YEARS* CHANGE. It is ' a changed place from what it' wa6. Ten years ago it hardly was at aIL There Was only an old store-^-a real old-fashioned colonial style of twoStory building, with a pair of dormer windows in the roof. It still stands, but 16 empty now, the writer believes. Emporiums, bon marches, and centres of commerce--— palatial structures, on the lines of. the House that Jack built, have long since-taken its place. The streets of Ohakuno, until a few yearß ago,' were a byword for mud. and people had to wade across them in gum baote in winter. To-day the daintiest visitor from town need not be "afraid to venture in the wettest weather across Ohakune's main resort of custom, _ Tons of riverbed metal have established a lasting foundation," which even timber wagons cannot utterly dec-tiby. VARIETY AND ARCHITECTURE. The town itself consists really of one main street, happily not absolutely straight. A kink at one point relieves tho monotony, and gives somo of the buildings abutting on the street a variety in angles, grotesque, but not unpleasing. Land appears to be fairly expensivo in Ohakune c main thoroughfare, for some of the sectiors are narrow for a back-blocks town, with hundreds of acres to pick and choose from at the gates. But it is a cheerful little place, Ohakune, with its purling streams running here and thero about the town, its bright pa-int. and ite glorious vista of bush mounting up to 'the icy elopos of Ruapehu. Then 1 '« an air about Ohakune one only find*; in anew settlement with fair dream's and visions of future /rrpatnece. Nothing could be more depicting than the little country town passed by and left 'la;,'nanit by the tide of prosperity ; nothing could be more exhilarating than a. fine morning in Ohakune with the sun shining on Ruapehu and the bush, with the tinkling of glittering waters and the various sounds of busy life in a new eettlement — 'clinking of hammers in forges, rattle of harness in the street', clattering of horses, rumbling of timber wagons, banging and tapping of carpenters at work on new buildings, and, in accompaniment to all, tho sonorous drone of sawmills. • BOUND FOR RAETIHI. It would be a pity to leave Ohakuno without a word about ite capacio'att Town Hall and handsome band rotunda —both monuments to the enterprise of the burgesses of Ohakune, and their confidence in the town. But one haa bo much to see in the Main Trunk country — and the coach for Raetihi is already about to start — only an hour or so late. To get to Raetihi it moves off in exactly the opposite direction geographically as the crow flies. The old straight road to Raetihi has long been disused as too difficult a proposition for the coaches in the winter. The new road turns off jutt outside Ohakune, runs down a mile or so at right angles to the main Okakune-Karioi-road, and then turns again to tho right, and this time heads straight for Raetihi. Here along the road is seen the effect of settlement in the bush by the wide clearings in parts which a few years ago were solid forest. There are several sawmills on the way, and a good many farms. Dairying is tho chief brands of farming pursued, and there are two factories — one near Ohakune and the other at Raetihi. LAND FOR FARMING. The land is very much in appearance like the land round Stratford and Ingle-wood--Yolcanic soil at a high elevation. The winter climate is severe, and consequently winter feed must be provided now that the bush is coming down. At one time the cattle were sent into the bush at the coming of winter and used to be found in the spring in very good condition, but such shelter will not be there for many years to come now. Farmers in some cases are already growing shelter plantations and hedges of theubiquitous piiiuß insignis and niacrocarpa. Whero the ground lias been completed, fltumppd, fair cropn of oats are obtained, Hf> that on the. whole it should bp a country worthy the attention «>t' the farmer. Tht) coach drive to Raetihi ie pleasant enough, though a trifle slow. Several line tmut rivers mo croaked on theway and tho route of the new blanch line from Ohakuue will give" easy access to these, as to the timber resources of the triangle of country between Ohakune, Ru«tihi, and Horopito. RAETIHI AS IT 18. Raetihi is an, epitome of backblocks settlement. It is an old place for theMain Trunk Country, dating from Ukopening up of tho madi road f;um Vipiiiki tv Tukaaim, muiio twenty vv thirty yeura bai t k--j^fiAayti lectfidg appeal: toj

be extant of the early history of these places. Of all the Main Trunk countiy towns it has changed the least. The writer saw it ten years ago. and he saw ifc the other day, and it does not seem to have altered a bit. It was left by the Main Trunk and owes nothing to it. It was a township that grew as a centre to a considerable area of farming which was early opened up in the district. This extends all the way up to Horopito northward, and a long way couth into the papa country. At the present time settlement runs down nearly to the Wanganui River, and what wasonce a most beautiful drive down to Pipiriki is now for its own sake not worth the journey. The distance to the river is about eighteen miles. HEADQUARTERS IJR WANGANUI RIVER. In those days Raetihi was essentially a distributing and collecting centre for the district which had ite outlet iv the Wanganui River. It now deals rather with the Main Trunk at Ohakune, but the Wanganui people are agitating for a railway up from their town, and some day it may come. But it is not the policy to allow the Main Trunk to be tapped by spur lines to coastal ports, which, however much they might benefit tho eettlere in cheaper freights, would certainly deprive the Main Trunk of its long-haul revenue. This is a case of conflicting interests, and the example of New South Wales should stand, with its congestion of traffic along the bottle neck into Sydney. It would undoubtedly be better for the country as a whole, if the Main Trunk— a long- single linecould be relieved at various points of its overburden of heavy goods traffic. The spectacle, as the writer saw it, of a single locomotive drawing eighty -empty trucks up the Horopito incline from Ohakune does not impress one ac being • good railway economy. ON THE TRACK FOR HOROPITO. The traveller will not dwell long on Raetihi. It is just simply a bush township with two large accommodation houses, several stores, a bank, a post office, county council offices, several places of worship, a Maori pa, and a dairy factory. It has no view of Ruapehu, and this is a drawback from the point of view of tourists, but it has a set-otf in its fine liver. Rae-tihi seems' somehow or other, whether because it is in a hollow and has no outlook, or because the buildings are mostly painted dull drab colours, to have picked up some of the soinbieness of the bueh with, out any of its gladness. It is a dull place for the stranger, but no doubt for the resident it has its compensations, and, after all, there is no place like home. As a business place it has the reputation of being solid, if not showy, which means a good deal in backblocks settlement. It has the benefit of, perhaps, - the best farming country . of the central ' Main Trunk within its reach, and with a branch line to • Ohakune, which appears to be being made in some mysterious way- without labourers, ■ the money being authorised, R&etihi has a solid* future before it. ,