THE WAIMAKARIRI

Grey River Argus, 14 May 1935, Page 6

THE WAIMAKARIRI

TENDERS FOR BRIDGE. BEING CALLED TO-DAY. Much satisfaction was yesterday expressed by the spokesmen of motorists at Greymouth on receipt of news that to-day the Government will call tenders for constructing a bridge over the Waimakariri River in the Bealey locality. The Secretary of the Automobile Association, Mr W. F. Harley, received from. Mr Langbein, Public Work's Engineer, Christchurch, a telegram yesterday stating that The bridge tenders are to-day being called. and it is expected that the stream by this time next year will have been bridged. A number of small watercourses between the bridge and Arthur’s Pass will also be bridged, and motoring overland on this route should then become more the vogue than ever before. It is recalled that the bridge will be situated near where it was in the ’sixties proposed to establish a town at the Bealey, streets named after the Saints having been planned. The project was that of the Canterbury pioneers, but it was deemed advisable to shift the projected site from this to the other side of the

river, but it came Io nought in the long run. The Bealey. however, signified much for early-Tlay travellers across the ranges, being the, stopping place overnight for Cobbs and Cassidy’s coaches, where “shakedowns” were often the rule, but where there used always to be the best of good humour. Improved loading, then‘the railway, and now the motor, have successfully speeded the overland journey, so 'that it has come to be done in about a seventh of the time once occupied, but with increased motor traffic the Bealey hostelry may remain a stopping place for many, while the nearby region is destined to grow in popularity as a holiday resort. The Railway Department has not much to fear from the better motoring facilities, as these will only mean an increase of passenger traffic and no competition for freight against the Department. Regarding the coaching days, the death some lime ago at Dunedin of a famous driver is recalled by an announcement that a fine monument is being erected to the memory of Edward Devine, better known as “Cab-bage-Tree Ned.” who wa s reckoned to be the famous Cobb and Co.’s greatest handler of the leather “ribbons.” When he drove the first English team, of cricketers to / Geelong

(Victoria) in 1862 he was presented with 300 sovereigns. The passengers in that coach numbered 70 —the biggest load of human freight ever carried behind a team of horses in Australia. “Cabbage-Tree Ned” was so called because he always (wore this type of hat, that for many years has been only a picturesque memory. On one ttecasion he was stuck up by Jordon, the bushranger, with the result that he and his passengers were relieved of £760. After retiring, he settled down quietly on a farm near Dunedin.