THE PENINSULA.

Otago Witness, Issue 1917, 17 August 1888, Page 14

THE PENINSULA.

Our Broad Bay correspondent writes :-r-The recent-severe weather has caused a good deal of damage by slips to the lower Portobello road, and the journey from the heads and Kaik on Friday morning to Dunedin was disposed to take a little off the roseate hue of the country settlers' happy life. To reach town, as they usually do about 9, the small dairy farmers there have to leave their homes about 5 am. sleighing their produce a mile or two beforo reaching the road at the Kaik, and then start- ■ ing a number of them together. On the morning named some six or seven .of the carts were brought up standing just after passing the drill shed by a heavy slip across the road, so there was nothing for it but to unhitch the horses and get the* carts down the retaining wall on the beach, haul them along past the slip aud up on the road again, hitch up and start afresh. About a mile further, near the Portobello Hotel, a culvert underneath a small embankment was found — or rather not found, but a wide chasm instead, and to pass that a detour was made through an adjoining paddock. Near Rayobird's the coach and other carts wero •' stuck up " by Nature's attempts to do some more levelling. That was negotiated only to find other similar obstructions at North-East Harbour, and in passing one of them the driver of the coach, Mr W. Bowles, was thrown off his seat, owing to one of the wheels striking a boulder hidden by the slush. He pluckily held on to the reins, but one of the wheels grazed his forehead, and he had his hat crushed. Eventually all reached town soon after midday. The Kaik settlers, to reach home before night, had to return almost immediately, the distance from Dunedin by the road being not less than 19 or 20 miles, and pitiless driving rain all the way.