FORTY YEARS AGO

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3153, 5 August 1942, Page 8

FORTY YEARS AGO

KOMATA BONANZA MINE DISAGREEABLE MISHAP CYCLIST THROWN IN CREEK '(From the Ohinemuri Gazette of August 3, 1902.) Our Komata correspondent reports that the No. 1 level of the Komata Bonanza Gold Mine is now in a total distance of 138 feet. Tight shooting ground was passed through during the last few days, but this has now given place to a splendid class of sandstone, which is interlaced with veins of quartz. There are five men employed and it is intended to put on more hands as soon as the reef as intersected. From all appearances, this will be soon and there is every indication that it will be of good value when met with. There is now a

good deal pf water coming out from the roof and. the face of the drive.

On Sunday, while Mr H. D. Morpeth, Waihi’s town cleric, was proceeding to Paeroa on his bicycle, he met with a most disagreeable mishap. He had pedalled for nearly two hours along the muddy and deeply grooved road and weary of the continued strain, branched off to a long stretch of smooth pathway, about a mile and a-half from Paeroa. with renewed vigour he bowled merrily along until he essayed a narrow footbridge spanning Buchanan’s creek. He had reached about the middle, when the handle of his machine struck the hand railing and in a moment, bicycle and rider plunged into the marshy depts below. The immersion was complete, and how he managed to extricate himself from the six feet of soft silt which lay beneath about 18 in. of innicent looking water is not - recorded. Suffice to say he got out and completed the journey to Paeroa in a dripping and bedraggled condition.