FURTHEST BACK.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 151, 26 June 1912, Page 16

FURTHEST BACK.

ARIA TO OHURA. \ OUTPOSTS OF ' SETTLEMENT. A TRAMP THROUGH THE WILD- - ERNESS. ' People are mightily mistaken if they think they can see the real backblocks from the windows of tho Main Trunk express. They may be some distance back from the city, but they will have to go a good deal further back, if they want to see the real thing. Even the coach will hardly take them to it. Ra«tihi, for instance, is an ancient monument of civilisation compared with some of the places where settlers are making their homes to-day. Indeed, any place accessible by coach, by good road, or by rail, cannot properly be said to be a part of the real backblocks. Such place may, indeed, be an outpost of civilisation on the frontier of the backwoods, but wherever it is possible to get in and out to the railway easily, cay, in a day's comfortable travelling, that is not by any means the worst place in the world. There are regions far remote from civilisation, and of one of these' this k an account. REMOTE SETTLEMENTS. It may be said, first of all, that the Southern Main Trunk — the area, ac previously defined, aouth of the Wanganui River — is very much more advanced in settlement than the northern part, extending from Tauma-runui to the mouth of the Mokau, cay, and from Te Kuiti to the borders of Taranaki proper — that is to cay, the settlement round Egmont. There is, indeed, a big block of some 64,000 acre* in a corner of the Sooth Main Trunk, fronting the Wanganui River to the north of the confluenco of the Mangonui-a-to-ao, back in from Raurimu, where the surveyors are just getting to work, and between this and the railway settlement is quite recent. But the point ig that this dißtrict is within easy reach of communication by water, by good road, and by rail. The Wanganui is the western boundary, with its service of river steamers, the Main Trunk is not far to the east, extending the whole length of the district, and to the south, running east and west, is the Pipiriki-Onakune coach-road. Though the country is exceedingly broken, no part of ib should be more than twenty miles at the out J side from one of the three excellent highways to civilisation, amd, moreover, good metal is close to hand. FAR AWAY FROM CIVILISATION. It is different with the greater area to the north and west of Wanganui and to the west of the Main Trunk, between Taumarunui and Te Kuifci. The distance between the railway and the sea coast is between fifty and sixty miles in a direct line all the way from Taumarunui to Te KuitL Some fifteen miles or so from the railway westward begins the papa, and extends practically to the coast. Where papa is there is almost invariably nothing else, and consequently metal has either to be made by burning the papa or to be brought in from long distances at great cost. This is practically out of the question in a new country, and the inevitable result is for many years at the Btart roads tbat are no reads except for a short season in the summer. Such is the fate of the greater part of the huge virgin region of the Northern Main Trunk — a region of over 3000 Bquare miles in all, of which only a part has been settled in permanent form. Yet there are scattered outposts of settlement, where least one would expect to find them, in the very heart of this great country. These may best be seen, perhapß, in the course of a tramp from Aria to Ohura in a direction due south parallel to the Main Trunk, only about thirty miles distant from it, and about the same distance from the coast. This is the very bisecting line, as it were, of the country, cutting through the middle of what only a few years ago was a tractless wilderness. To-day there are settlers through it all ' OUT OF ARIA. Aria Village, as it is called on the map, is just a few miles from the Mokau River, and belongs to the Upper Mokau country, with its limestone outcrops, ferny downs, and -isolated clumps of bush. The soil is still mainly volcanic; — a rich brown stuff, much like Taranaki soil in appearance. It is a centre from which a number of roads radiate to different settlements. It is quite close to the famous Mokau block, of which so much has bees heard in tho last year or so. It is also in the Taranaki Land District, of which the Mokau River is the boundary to the north. It is the last outpost from Te Kuiti south for the coaches etop here, some twentysix miles' distant from Te Kuiti. Should the traveller wish to get through to the line of settlement next in order to the south all along' the Upper Ohura Valley, he must go afoot or on horseback. It is 'not yet possible to drive through to Mangaroa, the principal township of the Ohura country. Tho writer, following his usual practice, took up his bwag and Bet out to tramp the twentt-eight miles on foot. CHARACTERISTIC COUNTRY. The first nine or ten miles — one loses count of distance as. well ac direction in a land of no milestones and no fingerposts — -the country is much the &ame as what has already v been; patssed in th<> coach trip from Te Kuiti. It is the characteristic country uf tho upper wateie of the Mokau and the Ohura — a lumpy, but not broken country, of rounded contours and swelling outlinee, but formlets in its general aspect. Kasy-going streams meander along tin* Hat valley bottoms into vast green raiipo swamps and out a^ain with the same- dark,-gi'een ferny Hills studded with park-like cllims of bush ats a ' background.' • Now and again the fern has hcen cleared and spurso grass tshuwfr up where a, tettler is struggling agiiinb-t odds to make tho t-oil keep sheep and eatllo, and. iin-ideutallx , himself and fanrh. Here and these aiv [Maun with a little p*toh of cultivation, bufe not much, for the Maori i* ihfi "big

landlord in all this part of the King Country. And he does not see why he should work when he can live on his rent. ROADS, BAD OR INDIFFERENT. The road iteelf through thie country ie not so bad as might have been expected from the absence of metal. It is eimply a dirt road, but tho traffic is not heavy hereabouts, and except on the flats, with swamps on each side, it coon drains iteelf of the wet, just as do the Taranaki roads. It is only when one Conies to roads in papa country that the tiiud really becomes permanent— a thick, sticky "gumbo,"' holding water like porridge. This is where metal i» moat sadly needed, and where it is most difficult to obtain. It is easy to recognise tho change into papa country in the Main Trunk. The rolling, floundering, shapeless volcanic undulations become at once sharp-edged ridges, with precipitous sides running down into gorges. The scattered clumps of bush are replaced by one continuous forest, save ' where the settler has cleared patches. It is a country, a 6 an Irishman put it to the writer on the way, "All ■ — — pinnacle)} and steepks." In the auctioneer^ list it might figure as hilly country, but that is a euphemism altogether. It is a country chopped up and gashed and wounded, as with gigantic knives, and only the bush makes ib pleasant to look on. VINTO THE PAPA COUNTRY. The papa country start* about ten miles by road from Aria in a long gorge running > up to the watershed, between the baein of the Mokau and the basin of tho Wanganui drainage in its tributary, the Ohura. The papa ie found about three or four miles on the Mokau side. Strange to say, although there is not yet, at the time of writing, a fully formed road all the way between Aria and the Ohura, nearly every mile of the distance is settled. Certainly the whole of the Waitewhena. Valley, a narrow gorge, widening out lower down, k cleared either on one side or the other practically all the way. To tho wayfarer in these parts it is astonishing to find, thirty miles or so from anywhere, substantial dwellings and cleared paddocks. Hut it is a rough country, and the climate is so moist that in many cases the burns have not been good, and second growth i« coming up strong through the ' matted litter of the fallen bush. Most of the settlers are in a fairly email way, and euch experiences as thi6, added to all the other drawbacks of life furthest back, are profoundly disheartening. A FUTURE HIGHWAY. On both sides of the dividing ridgd between the watereheds the work of widening the old original track ha« been carried out, so that only two or three miles of narrow track are now left between Aria and Ohura. It is a pity these were not put through with the rest, so that the whole distance might be open to vehicular traffic. As it ie, a mile of bridle-track renders almost useless the formed road on either side. As this road will be a sort of high-way between the Te Kuiti-Awakino-road and the Stratford-Te Koura Valley it should be finished without delay. There were about eixty men co-operating in short contracts on the Waitewhena sideup to Easter, and the formation was complete up to the divide, but a good deal remained to be done in the removal of slips at the time the writer went through. The formation of the whole country is extremely treacherous, and every spell of rain brings down the steep papa sides in slips, large and small. TOILS AND TRIBULATIONS. I One hears in passing through this country and country like it of the frightful hardships these pioneer settlers have to put up with through lack of good roads. Most of the settlers are married and the coming into the world of the young settlers of either sex is ceri tainly a, problem of great anxiety. Harrowing stories are told of long rides through the mud for the nearest doctor, perhaps thirty miles away, and of the brave country physician's gallop back in the darkness of the night— the intenser darkness of 'a night in the bush — to see that one more young New Zealander shall have a fair chance to make a de cent entry on the stage of life. Onehears also of prospective mothers riding into the nearest township over such road& to undergo their ordeal. There are many sad stories — stories of women dying of broken hearts in the dripping solitudes of these bush valleys, of men going mad and being forcibly removed, of a score of minor tragedies the people in cities never heard or dream of in the midst of the glamour of picture show* and electric lights and all that goes to make up city life. LOOKING FORWARD. One should not, perhaps, dwell too, much on this side of life furthest back. It is move cheerful to think of finGi fresh mornings in tho bush, with the mists lifting off the river and the sun shining through the dewy leaves in a sort of a tearful smile over the cleared land on the fiatu and the homely establishment 'of the pioneer. Such is the country and the life- in the heart of the backblocks. Most of the settlers are looking forward— it is the only way lt> look in this country. They uw> loo'kiiig forward to good rondf:, to rniLways near by, 'to schools for their children', and to a life not quite so urduous as has so fat' been thsiv l<»t. And so they peg on and keep on pegging your after year. Theirs i* net the prospect of the firt»b pioneers ol New Zealand or even of the pioneers of the last generation, who picked up much good lund cheaply uud have now • reaped the benefit of their foresight and labours. In the furthest back of 10-duy thorn is> not quite the same outlook, for the land is> a far touuhor proposition. But in their lotitf battle with adverse conditions (he dwellm in the furthest back will have tho B.viiiljathy of their move fortunate coun-