THE POOLBURN DAM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23517, 4 June 1938, Page 21

THE POOLBURN DAM

AN IMPRESSION By E. J. T. We had climbed seemingly to the top of the world. At least we were crawling cautiously and carefully over the roof of Central Otago, the appropriately named Raggedy Range. Our light motor truck, which had already been put to a most gruelling test as it had raced, skidded, and braked in a somewhat disconcerting fashion from the Styx Valley, now threaded a tortuous course through a veritable forest of stone imagery. If life possessed anything on this high tableland_ it certainly had become devilishly infused into the myriad fragments of gargantuan masonry that lay strewn over its length and breadth. The weathering imps had contorted the rugged rocks into the most freakishly expressive shapes, which frowned and grimaced at our approach. To this panorama of ghoulish statuary the lofty snow-clad ranges of the Southern Alps, far beyond the rim of the Raggedy Range, lent an air of unreality and otherworldliness. Their ghostly shimmering in the paling afternoon sunlight appeared to beckon from long ages past. The scene moving past us was thrown against the vast background of space-time. We might have been travelling backwards in a Wellsian time machine, in which we had arrived at a prehistoric epoch when primitive man left no evidence, except that of crude carven stone. It was an atmosphere in which it was easy to conjure up the most fantastical imaginings. Yet we were too often brought back to our immediate mechanised age by violent jolts and dream shattering, back firing reports to remain for long oblivious of the objective present. We had proceeded in this alternating fashion for about half an hour when suddenly, quite suddenly, without the least sign of an imminent change in our landscape, an arm of water glided into our side view. “The dam,” muttered my companion next to me laconically. I grunted assent and began to visualise a speedy arrival at journey s end, the site of the dam structure. But I was soon undeceived in my reckoning, for in a space of moments the stretch of water disappeared behind some rising ground, and we were left to the grinning statuary and the tantalising track, which lured us on with false promises of the end over every rise. At last time and space yielded to our persistence. Out of this upper world maze another sheet of water swam into our ken ahead of us, and to the right of it there curved gracefully the clean white lines of the Poolburn Dam. My companion turned to me and grinned, as much as to say, “ Well, here you arel” In truth we had arrived, and after carefully negotiating an uncharted stretch of tussock we braked the truck beneath the shadows of a group of castellated rocks, near the still waters of the lake. By this time the lengthening shadows were ominous portents of the approaching dark. As there was little time to lose, with one accords we set to with a right good will to make ourselves snug and secure for the night, and then to prepare an evening meal. Across an inviting gap surrounded by three grey, bastions we slung a canvas sheet, and by hanging tent flies over some of the openings we soon had comfortable sleeping quarters. Our hunger appeased, the more ardent fishermen among us (for let me confess it, we had come to fish) busily prepared their tackle, and sallied forth to try their luck. Meanwhile I sauntered rodless to the dam itself, and strolled on to its concrete railed parapet. Below me 60 to 80 dizzy feet of sweeping white concrete sloped steeply away to the floor of the valley, which was now cut off from its flooded upper reaches. From a few yards of pipe line, which rested on massive concrete blocks in the old creek bed, there gushed a fierce jet of water which, further down the valley, was conveyed by races to Irrigate the Ida Valley. The millions or, perhaps, billions of gallons of water which were being held back lay like liquid plains before me. A stretch of placid water is always a restful sight, but it was particularly so here, for if it did little else it at least lessened the impression of restlessness, and softened the stark ugliness of the bleak surroundings. The littoral of the lake was devoid of beauty; its eesthetic appeal none. It was scarcely a tribute to man’s handiwork to say that relative to its surroundings the dam itself was beautiful, but in its clean simplicity and sweeping curves it begot a certain impression of strength and beauty which could pot be decried. Moreover, it sealed from sight thousands of acres which in all probability were as desolate and rockstrewn as those left above the waters. The eye now could rest on a clear untroubled surface, suggesting something of the gentleness of more friendly landscapes. Yet with it all there was a curious peacefulness. A sort of brooding quiet hung over this high world and stilled the air, vibrant with bird and insect wings, into an uncanny dumbness. Were it not for the low roar of the gushing waters from the outlet pipe I might have felt that life hereabouts had becjorne slowed to imperceptible movement, almost to suspended animation. Even the cries of night-winged shag and paradise duck only momentarily broke the fixedness of this impression. As I slowly returned to the camp in the dim twilight I could just make out the dark motionless figures of my companions, patiently watching their propped-up rods. t I joined them and took up a position on the bank of a lagoon whose waters sucked and gurgled under cavernous rocks on one side and lapped lazily in the rolling tussock on the other. Night was well upon us when the moon broke through a sullen sky and illumined the gloom. The grotesque images of the day stood silhouetted or silvered in the flood of transforming moonlight, shading softly and indefinably their harsher features. The rising moon dipped its homy crescent into the still waters of the lake. There was peace in this high world, peace in the very ruggedness of the Raggedy Range. Evening’s wandering airs had wandered into quietude, and left sustained a pensive note on which to close the simple melody of these waking hours. One by one we returned to our camp, chatted of our fortunes and heartening prospects of the morrow until the silent magic of the night stilled us into dumb sleep. A thin mist lay upon us when we woke next morning. Its clammy swathes clung tenuously to the cold, grey stones and hung in close affinity over the water. There was little comfort in the scene. Even the hitherto solacing lake was chilly of aspect, and the grey-white dam cold and grimly still. Nevertheless, we breakfasted cheerfully in typical “help yourself” al fresco fashion, and then prepared for the day’s fishing. Soon wa were all straggled

out along the margin of the lake, assiduously thrashing the water with alluring minnows, or sitting sphinx like, patiently and silently by pur propped-up lines, baited with wriggling worms. As we fished our way around the winding shore we were afforded several glimpses of unsuspected lagoons and bays. Revealingly, too, a light breeze sprang up and lifted the mist above the octopus formation of the lake which, with its insinuating tentacles, crept around many a hillock, and far into the flank of the main ridge. We could only conjecture the extent of the waters, but it appeared to be considerable. Yet if it covered up hundreds of acres of rocks and tussocks, it only left thousands more equally barren, and in addition an ugly dark water line made by the, rotting vegetation, principally tussock, which once wavered livingly in the breeze, now temporarily exposed by a falling water level. This reminder of its antediluvian state, but three or four years ago, was strengthened by' wheel and sheep tracks which now beckoned down into the drowned valley, where once men drove and rode, and sheep browsed beneath the Central sun.

The dreary monotony of mors or less wasteland in its drab brown and greys was a very uninspiring sight. It revealed Nature in one of her niggardly moods. Everywhere was the hand of a skinflint. Round every bend a similar scene met us, until it became fiat, stale, and unprofitable. There were none of those charming little vistas, which in more hospitable and generous -v parts meet the traveller’s gaze. True, we saw it under unfavourable weather conditions. The sky never cleared, and over the western edge there rolled billows of mist < and cloud, which threatened rain. There seemed to be no hours set for this day, which of all days was beginning to seem the longest. Shortly after we had decided to reel in our lines and return to the camp, rain began to fall, with increasing force, until by the time we were partaking of a welcome lunch, most thoughts of further fishing were banished, I shall not attempt to describe the scene of utter desolation to which' our surroundings were reduced. It reminded me of a dirty grey, streaky daub, which occasionally passes for impressionists’ art. But it takes more than rain to damp the ardour of your true angler, and two or three of our party were still determined to fish. The rest of us coiled up under the canvas and slept or read.

The incessant rain made an early departure necessary. Hence when the more ardent anglers returned, we stowed our equipment into the truck as speedily as possible, putting the six or seven fish, which represented our total catch, carefully in the cab. We skidded back on tp the track by which we had come, and those of us who sat huddled up in the back of the truck shared the dubious pleasure of watching the Poolburn dam' slip silently from view, while we slithered and slid off the roof of Central Otago down to the Styx Valley.