Diggers’ Valley – A Future Scenic Attraction

Northern Advocate, 30 November 1937, Page 12

Diggers’ Valley - A Future Scenic Attraction

Unseen by the traveller on the main highways there lies within 20 miles of Kaltaia a roughly formed road which should some day be a scenic gem second to none in the North,

Diggers' Valley, a 14-mile long connecting link between Takahue and Hcrekino. awaits the advent of surveyors and workmen, who will transform it from a veritable cattle-track into a valuable scenic attraction. Today the speed over this road, even in the eight-cylinder mail car, is on an average less than 15 miles an hour; in bad weather it is lower, and there are times when sections of the road are almost impassable. For the ordinary motorist, those 14 miles would take the best part of an hour and a half to traverse.

Setting out from the old Maori fortification of Takahue, the narrow metal highway soon finds its way into the heart of a wilderness of native bush. Here can be seen the tragic callousness of early bush desttoyers, whose one object appeared to be the cutting out of choice trees and the burning of the remainder.

Scattered at irregular intervals are farm settlements, characteristic of

Northland grazing land. On the flats, and in the valleys, dairy herds predominate. but. looking out across the wild hill country from vantage points, it appears that for every acre of land brought under cultivation there are some 10 or even 20 that have seen nothing of man’s influence save his fire-lighting equipment. Where the soil is cultivated, however, swards of rich pasture give ample evidence of what can be done with this land when once it is scientifically broken in. No particular type of scenery characterises this road. In it one sees every variety—rugged hill country, rich river flats, easy slopes for grazing stock, and perhaps most stimulating of all, virgin forest rising on one hand as far as the eye can follow. Even as the winds his way among the hills and negotiates the tricky washouts which are a perpetual danger to travellers, his eye automatically fixes itself on the grand vista of unspoiled native bush. A halt on the roadside brings to his ears the unforgettable music of tuis and cooing pigeons; and if he waits a minute or two he will be rewarded by seeing the singers of these romantic songs. In all, there are some 20 settlers in the valley, which, as its name implies, was opened up for returned soldiers’ settlements. Today their chief concern is not the price of butterfat so much as the problem of better road : access. Metalled in 1932, and occasionally patched up since then, the present road is in a very unsatisfactory condition. Washouts are frequent and flooding on the lower levels is a regular feature during wet weather. Three regular vehicles make the journey on week days—the mail car, the school bus and the cream lorry. Private cars, apart from those belongirig to settlers, arc practically unknown. Diggers' Valley has long been considered a nightmare for motorists obliged to use its narrow road; but. underlying its rough surface, there is the possibility that one day it will become the route through a rich producing area—a route, too, which will be looked upon as one of Northland’s finest scenic attractions.