AFTER 40 YEARS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 56, Issue 32938, 17 December 1947, Page 6

AFTER 40 YEARS

OLD RESIDENT’S RETURN VISIT TO PAEROA “CHANGE IN COUNTRYSIDE” A visit to the Hauraki Plains after over 40 years’ absence has been made by Mr Walter Elliot, of Brisbane, Australia, a brother of Mr E. Elliot, of Omahu, and an uncle of Mrs B. Aitken, of Thames road, Paeroa. Mr Elliot is at present making a tour of New Zealand, visiting' his friends and relatives, and is to return to his home in Australia early next year.

“The first thing that struck me,” Mr Elliot said, speaking to a representative of the Gazette recently, “ is the change in the appearance of the countryside.” As he remembered it the hills were covered with trees and heavy bush. There were no farm lands on the hills along the Thames road. Duck Filled Swamp The Piako district as he remembered it over 40 years ago was nothing but a duck filled swamp. , Mr Elliot was bom at Omahu, and it was that he spent his youth. Mr Elliot took up farming in Australia on the Darling Downs, which he said contained some of the richest land in the world. There was onlyjhe one factor which spoilt it, and that was the long dry season which parched the land. As far as the soil itself was concerned it was so rich that it required no manuring. He is to return to Australia, where he is living in retirement in Brisbane.