EARLY WAGONING DAYS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26791, 7 June 1948, Page 6

EARLY WAGONING DAYS

Sir, —Woulcl you kindly allow me space for- a few lines on light horse transport? I think my father, A. C. Iversen (Conroy’s) would be the first that took strawberries and cherries through the goldfields. He went to Queenstown, Nevis (which was a very bad road), and to Naseby—Hogburn it was called then. He was allowed to take as many strawberries into the hospitals as' the patients wanted, but no cherries. They were 2s 6d a lb in those days, 1879-1880. In 1889 and 1890 he sold them for 4d lb, and tons rotted because there was no sale. He had a tilt on the wagon and slept in it to protect his fruit from thieves. His brother carted a lot of fruit for him. Mr Dawson also went out with fruit about the same time and later. The roads were bad and the creeks and river crossings were always getting washed away and were dangerous. When they started carting their fruit to Lawrence to catch the train for Dunedin, hawking pretty well died out, but there were a few on the road for years till the petrol got scarce. There were quite a lot of light wagons carting fruit to Lawrence, as well as bigger ones with four and five horses until the railway came closer to the Central line and eot to Clyde, where it stayed a good many years. It was a hard life for the carters, for the roads in places were cut up so deeply that if you got in one rut you had to stay there from Earnscleugh to Alexandra in the coal-carting days. I hope Mr Harris’s suggestion of a reunion of old wagoners will come off before it is too late. I think it has been wonderful to get so much space for these letters when newsprint is so scarce. It is a pity they were not started sooner. —I am, etc., G. M. McElroy.