Between Mangonui and Whangarei.

Northland Age, Volume VI, Issue 3, 6 September 1909, Page 4

Between Mangonui and Whangarei.

Cr. Powell, who returned to Mangonui to-day from his quarterly trip to the meeting of the North Auckland H. and Charitable Aid Board, informs us that the roads are in very had order. According to Mr. Fowell the men employed on the Whaugarei Kawakawa railway line are very dissatisfied and many of them are leaving the work. Last pay day one of the gangs only averaged 3/4 per day and another gang 4/10 per day per man. The Kawakawa railway extension is moving very slowly and there are big cuttings and fillings at the end of the Ramarama valley which at the present rate of progress will take at least two years to complete. The ballasting on the extension is also making very slow headway and people are wondering why the line to Towai is not yet opened. It is peculiar that goods and mails are now carried from Whangarei to Towai but passengers are not permitted to travel further than Hukerenui. Comparison is being made in the Bay of Islands between the progress made by the Government in the Whangarei Kawakawa line of railway and the fourteen miles of line put in by the Kauri Timber Company at Puketi. The Government work seems to advance at the rate of a mile a year whilo that done by the private company works out at fourteen miles in fourteen months. And the Puketi line will have to carry extraordinarily heavy traffic!