QUAINT HAVELOCK

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 126, 29 May 1915, Page 10

QUAINT HAVELOCK

THE COCKY AND THE MINER SOME NOTES BY THE WAY. (By a Casual Tripper.) Reference has been made to the oldtime activity of Havelock as a golddigging centre. Havelock, like some other old goldmining towns, has a peculiar trick of suggesting the picturesque past without offering any tangible evidences thereof. While the sleepy present smacks merely of rural simplicity, one nevertheless feels vaguely that there was a time when the magic of gold-seeking cast an electrical spell , when, people had souls above grass and sawdust. This remark is not intended to be derogatory to the pastoral and timber industries, but merely to emphasise the great gulf that separates the mineral and the agricultural avocatious. Ride out a few miles from Havelock to the Wakamarina Valley, and you meet at once surviving proofs that mining etill means very much to the district. Here the "cocky" and the goldminer exist side by side. Mounds of stones and sharp excavations, relics of a nagt generation of gold sluicers, are plentiful enougfc on the banks of the Wakamarinn. Alluvial operations are, indeed, being carried on to this day, and in addition has come a modern development in^ the shape of reef-mining People in Wellington are apt to look upon Wakamarina gold as something of the dim past. How many of them realise that there is one reefing claim employing near ly one hundred men, outputting about £600 worth of gold a fortnight, and about the same value of scheelite, and reputed to be the greatest producu? ot the latter metal in the whole world? The Wakamarina is a tributary of the PeJorus River, which ha|s its origin away back of Nelson, and runs into the Pelorus Sound near Havelock. Anyone coming overland from Picton via, the Grove will find three outlets at Havelock ; (1) He may travel overland to Ndson via the Pelorus Valley and the Rai and Whangamoa Saddles, crossing the Wakamarinn en route; (2) he may cruise in hired launch dowr the Sound to Kenepuru, Nydia Bay, or anywhere else he chooses, and may, if he wishes, ship direct, by small steamer, to Wellington ; (3) he may turn southward via the Kaituna Stream and cross into the valley of the Wairan, and thence to Blenheim. Havelock to Nalson is something over fifty miles of good coach road. Anyone wishing to cover the distance in stages will find an accommodation house close to where the Rai stream joins the Pelorus ; and another one on the Whangamoa stream, which separates the Rai and the Whangamoa Saddles. These elevations mean a considerable climb for any tourist having, no motive power other than his own legs. ' In summer time good trout-fishing would help . to make a stay at the accommodation houses very enjoyable. PELORUS AND WAKAMARINA. A trip from Havelock to Wakamarina, some fifteen miles distant via the Nelson road, is no great tax on either man or beast, and is well worth the trouble. Shortly after leaving the town the road runs up the right bank of the Pelorus River, where is situated a timber-ship-ping settlement, with mill and jetty, known as Blackball. Depth of water is not a strong point at Havelock, but Blackball has depth enough to load ships of considerable sige, and is connected with back-country bushes by over twenty miles of full-gauge tramline, which generally follows the course of the Pelorus River to its confluence with Rai. Travelling along the road to the Wakamarina. which joins the Pelorus at Canvaatown, is witnessed the . anomaly of heavy timber wagons being drawn by straining teams, while right alongside the road is the almost idle tramline. It seems that the bushes which it served are nearly cut out, and that the whole line is likely to be torn up and sold, for the reason that — apart from the timber-— there is insufficient traffic. It may be — as local gossip suggests— that the state of the bridges and the limited traffic prospect render the property an unattractive one to the Government, but the prospect of tearing up 20 to 50 miles of line in a country crying out for development is nevertheless disheartening. Many thousapds must ha,ve been expended in the formation work alone. Moat of the timber wagons ply to and from the Wakamarina, where two or three sawmills are working the bush on the steep hillsides and deep valleys. Much of their output is carted all the way to Blenheim. In the Wakamarina Valley timber and gold-mining provide some winter employment for the settlers, but the miner and the fanner are two distinct races, and are mutually critical. "It is useless to employ 'cookies' in sluicing claims," said a gold-seeker from the South, "because they are only useful when the cows are dry. As soon as the warm weather begins, they find that something has gone wrong with the water supply, but the real fact is that mining is off because the cows are in." This is, of course, an ex parte view. But the mutual disparagement of digger and cultivator is not a new thing, nor is it confined to this district. Wide differences of occupation, and therfore of temperament and of adaptability, sufficiently account for the phenomenon. To the visitor the Wakamarina offers the glamour of old associations plus the active modern industry represented by the reef-mining and the timber-milling ; the former of which, it ie hoped, may prove permanent. Moreover, the valley possesses much, of its primeval beauty of lofty hills, bush-clad slopes, and deeprunning waters, carving their way through rock -bound gorges of great beauty. And the climate, which provided a May day glorious almost beyond conception, is said to be one of the finest in Now Zealand. A PORT FEE PROBLEM. Anyone desiring a trip from Hav«lock down the Sound will probably have little difficulty in securing a launch, but some friction in this respect has., it seems, been caused by the imposition of a harbour fee of £1 a year on launches using the whai'f. The impost does not appear to be a heavy one, but it seems tp have frightened away more than one of the lower Sound launches. Not that the owjiprp are without a pound to throw away. They probably have enough and to spare, but human nature ynmetirneß resents the spirit of a tax more than its rash value. One of the spcssioniets wag so good a customer at a Havelock Hotel that the publican offered to pay his £1 fee, provided he would visit Havelock not less than three times a year. Apparently the trouble is not the spending of a sovereign, but the method of spending it. The clearing of bush from the hills overlooking the Sounds has detracted from the scenic effect, and has not m all. cases compensated therefor by providing a luxuriant pasture. In the eteep places the grass does not hold «o well as it does on the limestone hills about Nelson, and large areaa have been invaded by the common fern. Where the plough cannot go the only remedy seems to bo pigs, large numbers of which are kept for this purpose in the Sounds country, and incidentally they are com; mandijig good prices from the buyers. If confined to limited aieas of fernaffeotud country, fch* pigs rapidly effect a clearance of the peel. At Paradit*

Bay, opposite the Kenepuru arm ot Pelorus Sound, there is a. butter factory, but most of the dairy factories in the district make cheese. There are cheese factoriee at Havelock, The Grove, Canvastown, and Rai; the last-named, it is said, being the biggest in the district. (In passing, it may be mentioned that in Queen Charlotte Sound home-eepara-tion is largely followed, and the cream, landed at Picton, ie sent by train to Blenheim. Some fanners still manufacture their own butter and retail it in Picton.) A progressive mining industry in the Wakamarina would be a very good thing for Havelock, because rural pursuits, though the backbone of the country, are liable, in places of limited size, to run in a groove. Havelock is such a beautiful, homely spot that people are addicted to not wanting to go out of it, and stay-at-home habits are not an unmixed bless ing. At -the same time, it must be 6aid of the young men of Havelock that they did not stay in their habitations when their country wanted them. This district has turned out a very large quota of accepted volunteers, and . has not neglected to take its share in the worldmaKing event* in Europe. (To be continued.)