A DESERTED CAMP

Otago Witness, Issue 3566, 18 July 1922, Page 8

A DESERTED CAMP

MYSTERY SOLVED AFTER MANY YEARS. An incident with a flavour of romance about it was related by Professor Park in the course of his address on the 11th on exploration in North-west Otago. In describing a visit which lie paid in the spring of 1836 to the mountainous region lying between the Dart Valley and Big Ray, he states that while following up the Cascade River ho unexpectedly came on a large, deserted camp consisting of two tents pitched face to face with a fly stretched over the opening between them. Under the fly there was a rude table with a rough timber stool on each side. He inspected this camp with no little curiosity, and found everything in good order. There was a large supply of food. In the camp oven there was a batch of bread, and all the evidences f minted to the hurried departure of the ate owners. The mining picks, shovels, and drill steel lying around proclaimed that this was a well-found prospectors’ camp. On looking around we found that prospecting had been attempted in a white slip not. far distant. Curiously enough, there was not a scrap of paper or anything to be found that would indicate who the owners were, what they hoped to find by digging in the toe of a loose talus of rock, or what led to the hurried leaving. “It was not till 23, years later,” said Professor Park, “that I was able to gather any information as to this lonely mountain camp. In 1914, in a talk with Captain Hanning, cf the Waikana, I referred to this deserted camp in the Red Hill country, and was not a little surprised when he •aid that ho was one of a party of six

prospectors who, in 1885, camped at the head of the Cascade, sent there, if I remember him aright, by an Invercargill syndicate to prospect for platinum. Their supplies were loaded by steamer at Big Bay, and carried inland bv relays. The cause of the hurried departure was what I had supposed it to be. One day snow began to fall, and fearful of being snowed in for the winter and perishing through cold and lack of food they gathered up their personal belongings and left hot-foot without even waiting to tie the strings of the tent, flaps. That was, I think, in March, 1885, or eight months before the date of my visit. Thus after many years was solved a mystery that I had often mused over when camped in later years among the alps of the south.