TRAPPED BY TIDE

Evening Post, Issue 98, 27 April 1936, Page 6

TRAPPED BY TIDE

HEAVY LOSS OF SHEEP

BATTERED AGAINST CLIFF

(By Telegraph) (Special to the "Evening Post.")

NEW PLYMOUTH, This Day.

Trapped by an' abnormal spring tide at Whiteclifls, Pukearuhe, on Saturday morning,, four hundred sheep were drowned and many more were injured through being battered against the cliffs by huge waves driven before a north-westerly gale.

The flock of 1000 sheep had been purchased by Borthwick and Sons from McDonald Bros., of Piopio, and were being driven by the beach stock route to the Waitara freezing works. Overtaken by darkness and in fear of the rising tide, the drovers decided to leave the sheep for safety in a gulch running down from the cliffs to the sea, for even at normal times the tide at full flood dashes' against the high, perpendicular cliffs. The drovers spent-the night at Mr. M. Wells's homestead and on Saturday morning returned to the beach to resume the drive. They found that the sheep had wandered along the beach, some having crossed a huge slip which had crashed down from the cliffs on to the beach. The gale howled in from the sea, sending great rollers slithering up the", beach.

Aware that the tide under the influence of the gale would rise rapidly, the drovers made frantic efforts to hurry the sheep across the slip in small batches. Part of the flock was driven safely across, but the race against time was doomed to failure. With astonishing rapidity the tide flooded in and soon hundreds of sheep were being thrown - against the cliff by crashing waves. The drovers had to climb the cliff for their own safety, and could only watch helplessly the carnage. going on below.: Bruised on the rocks, dashed against the cliff, or washed out to sea by each succeeding wave, fully 400 sheep were slaughtered and many more had broken legs or lost patches of wool and skin. Only that part of the flock that remained on* the higher land of the gulch escaped the fury of the sea.