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Evening Post, Volume xciv, Issue 73, 24 September 1917, Page 8

"I found the roads in a terrible state" (said a igentleman who' recently visited the Whangarei, Kaitoke, and Hokianga area) to an Auckland Star reporter. "The settlers say they have never before seen them so bad as at the present time. My horse got bogged ; within thirty feet of" the verandah of the house of one farmer. I really thought we were going out of sight, so I slipped off the horse's tail, after which the poor animal managed to struggle out again. I may tell you that the backblock settler has had a hard time of it this winter, with floods, slips, and practically no roads. At one place I saw eleven horses dragging one wa-gon. That was on the road to a place called Titoki. Notwithstanding the eleven horses it was impossible to get the wagon through the mire without taking out some; of the load. In several places the floods have washed away the bridges, and the fords are not good by any means. At a place called Waimatanui, the road was so 'bad on account of the slips that had taken place that I was forced to climb the hillside to scramble round thorn. Some of tl>e farms are in an awful state owing to the hills having slipped 'on to low ground. : The grass paddocks are covered- with mud, and as the slips have left the bare rock on'-tha hill side, there is no chance of growing grass there again. Some fine flats, which used, to be cultivate!., arc now covered with logs, stones, and : silt, left by the floods. Still, most.of the settler's are going- ahead with brave hestfts."-