HARKING BACK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3714, 19 May 1925, Page 69

HARKING BACK.

WANDERINGS, UPS AND DOWNS. By An Ancient O.H.S. Boy. (Who joined the school in 1865.) (Fob thji Witness.) in. When I had finished the cutting up of Captain M'Kenzies run (and a very fine gentleman the captain was), I waa deputed by the then Chief Surveyor, the late Mr J. T. Thomson, to go over to Tapanui and survey an extension to that township. Crossing the Pomahaka River on my way there I nearly met my end. A big storm was on, and the river rising rapidly. I was advised not to try and cross it, but, with my swag strapped in front of me, and my theodolite on my back, I essayed it, the river rising fast all the time. When fairly into it, the horse was carried Way with his load, but a sharp bend in the river saved us, and we were landed amongst some flax bushes, where the horse regained his feet. At Tapanui they would not believe I had come across, as the constable turned back long before the river was as high. This survey of township extension was amongst the tailings of bush that had been felled for saw-milling purposes. There was a lot of chopping to bfe done, so we had to take on two extra men. When we were engaged this work one day, a constable came in on us, saying: are just the very fellows I want.” "Why, what have we done?” I asked. “Oh, nothing,” said he, “but a man has been found dead. Captain M‘Kenzie, the coroner, is going to hold an inquest, and I want four more men fpr the jury.” “But,” said I, "you can’t take us.” “For why?” he asked. “Oh,” said I, “We are on Government work.” "Sure, that makes no odds.” “Why,” said I, "you don’t know your duty. Go and ask the coroner. If he says we have to, then we will go.” This, of course, was all bluff. Away he went to see the coroner, but hardly had he gone away, when I boxed the instrument and planted it in a thicket, and got the hands to do the same with all our belongings. Then we planted ourselves in another thicket. Sure enough, as I expected, back came the constable, but no one was to be found. He cooeed, whistled, and swore, but all to no purpose. He could not elicit an answer. At last he went away growling. We' lay low for an hour or more, then returned to our work. Next evening I met him. “Oh, its you, you divil,” he said. "Where did you get to after 1 left you? The coroner told me to bring you all in under arrest, but I could not find you.” “Oh, we had to take up our work further down the hush.” “That will do you, now, but you won’t have me again.” My first view of that beautiful extent, of country was from the Dunrobin Hill, when we came down to the Swift Creek (where Heriot now stands) at sunset, and pitched our tent amongst the flaxes for the night. At that time there was no fence nearer than Spylaw Station. The first place we passed was Mr Robert, Andrew’s Station, then Mrs Mayo’s accommodation house, where Kelso now is, then Mrs Glaister’s shanty at the Flodden. At Tapanui five sawmills were at work, and dozens of bullock teams carting away the timber in all directions. The first Sunday I was there, I took a stroll up to the top of the Blue Mountains to get a view, and a glorious one it was, but little did I think I would have to go up again whether I wanted to or not. It took over two hours’ steady going to make the ascent from that 6ide. After finishing the extension to the township, we had to go to Ormaglade Station to survey a pre-emptive right of 640 acres, but on the way I had to stop at Ardmore to re-survey the main road from Kelso across the flat, as the flat had all been churned up with bullock waggons laden with timber, and no trace of any pegs could be found. This survey had originally been executed by the late J. A. Connell, than whom there was no more accurate man connected with survey work in Otago. Starting from reliable data at Kelso we followed his bearings and chainage to decimals, and found the stump of every peg about 18 inches down. It was always a pleasure to follow or have to join on to Connell’s work. It was always absolutely correct, and chainage checked to trianguilation. I must hot forget to tell of one big work that was entrusted to me, and in connection with which 1 could tell some funny stories. This was the triangulation of part of the Lammerlaw Range, one of the worst jobs with which I ever was connected. Interesting as far as the work itself was concemod, but most uninteresting ns regards the weather, for if the wind never blew anywhere else it certainly did not forget to pay its attentions there. Our trig stations were planted miles apart, and none of party saw each other all day long, for, despite guying and bracing, it took all the time to keep the flags plumb for observations. This was impossible after 10 a.m., nor could I keep tho thoodolite level, so we all had to make back for camp till the wind died down at 6 p.m. To finish our Work we had to go as the wind would allow. It being summer time (the only time one could be out on a job like that) we were miles away from comp at 4 a.m. and driven back to camp at 11 for sure, to pick wp our work at 5 p.m., scouts having been round previously to plumb all

the flags. We then worked on while the light held /good tor observations. Had we not done this we might have been there yet.

It was a very inaccessible place, with every gully a floating peat bog, som© of them on even the ridges. I have sometimes been within half-a-mile of our cahip, but having a horse with me have had to go miles around, as it was dangerous to take a horse into one of those gullies, and the wind could blow! Some will no doubt think I am exaggerating when I say I have had my horse blown over under me, and that I once became so frightened that'l went into the head of a gully, where I stayed for some hours until tLe wind quelled, frightened to expose myself to ite fury. The water races from the Waipori River passed through this country, and formidable things they were to meet and cross, especially if one was going up hill and on a steep sidling. I had two of my assistants one day, all riding, when we had to cross one of these on a steep sidling. Thinking I was the beet horseman of the three I took the lead and crossed. The next man had a riding stick like a pick handle. I saw that he was frightened, for he was hanging on to the horse’s mane, while the horse was shaking and quivering. “By jove,” he said. "If you don’t jump I’ll kill you when I get you over.” The horse, whether afraid of these threats or not, made the jump, and landed with his jockey all right. Tne next, man, who did not like tne look of things, took some urging to put his steed to it, but after considerable shivering and shaking the horse made a terrific plunge, and crossed, minus the man, however, who had been clinging to the pommel of the saddle, of which the girth had burst as the horse jvlnped. The man fell on tbt> low side of the race and the saddle with him. It was one of the most ludicrous things I ever saw. “Are you hurt?” I asked. "No, but, by thunder, I can’t find the saddle.” Now this was a big race and carrying several heads of water, and I saw the saddle while it was being looked for amongst the tussocks, but I could not tell them where it was, so convulsed was I with laughter. At length I managed to say: “It’s away floating down the race!” Some more wanderings took place then, but are not worth here recording. As you will have seen I was carrying on the work of the District Surveyor, but was receiving only a chainman’s wage. When my time of service as a cadet was nearly up, I gave notice that 1 would be leaving, as I had a good offer of service from the Taranaki Government, but on the Chief Surveyor’s hearing of my intention the offered me the position of Sub-District Surveyor under my old boss, at a salary and travelling expenses which I accepted, but I kept this for only about eight months, as the District Surveyor kept interfering with my men, especially if I had good ones, and had just got them well trained. In disgust I wrote my resignation, giving a month’s notice to leave the service. This surprised him very much, as all the work in the district then fell on him, and there was plenty to do. When my dear old chum. Jim H , left us nearly two years before I did, he got a very good appointment with a private surveyor. We kept up a correspondence, and when he knew that I had sent in my resignation, proposed that he should send in his also, and that we join forces, and take up a lot of spotting applications in the Gatlins River district at schedule prices. To this I agreed, though we heard that two others had, after trials, given it up as too rough, with nothing to be made out of it. We were not long at it before we saw why the job had been given best twice before, as it was rough bush work with no roads, and boating both to and from work. We never had dry clothes on till we were home to camp at night. We donned yet clothes each morning, as had we started in dry ones they would have been wet in no time. It was winter time, and we were glad to get an oar and pull just to keep up circulation. Fortunately we had a good cook, a real old sailor man (a brother of King, of the Burke, Wills, and King expedition to the Gu’f of Carpentaria). But there was no chance of anything in the way of meat food excepting wild pigs. For a change we used to shoot kakas and pigeons, which then were in abundance there, and lovely stews they made! The Owaka River (then called the Owake) was then fringed to the water’s edge with native bush, and we had to cut lines through the bush when traversing that bonny stream. This was in 18/6, a long time ago. In going down this stream to work we had at times to go (in . our flattie) with’an outgoing tide. I used to like taking the steer oar. At one particular place where it was deep water there were some nasty snags, and, though it was easy enough to steer clear of them, one morning the boat kissed one of them. We thought it rather a joke, all but a sailorman, the only one who realised the seriousness of the situation. We were amused at the fuss he made about it, and I promised the rest I would give him to talk about next morning, as I would give tho boat a good bump on. I did, and we all had a terrib|fe fright ns the boat shipped water. We all thought it was the end of us, and be sure I never tried that clever joke again. Our sailor friend said he would not go with us again unless he had the steer oar, so I had to resign my position. There were different sawmills down there—Guthrie and Larnach’s (or the "big mill,” as it was (piled) up Catlins Lake, and M'Kenzie and Dutton’s on the Owaka. Old Dad (Dutton) as we used to caJl him, was the greatest friend to us of them all. He was a very big Canadian, and a grand axeman. This is how I made Dad’s acquaintance.

We had some spotting applications to survey in the Upper Owaka Valley, so we faced up to them, aJid a very rough time we had, particularly in our last camp. We were camped after crossing the river half-a-mile further up, and when we had finished our work up there and were just out of tucker, a great pour of rain with a high easterly wind came on and ripped our tents to shreds. Everything we had was wet. I know I walked about from 3 o’clock in the morning soaking wet to keep off the shivers, and was glad when daylight made its appearance. Though there were thousands of acres of bush we could not light a fire, and worse than all had little or no food. The stream was up, and we could go neither north nor south. We were almost starving, when a happy thought occurred to one of the party. "Why not fell a big tree on the stream’s edge? It ought to reach over, and perhaps the settlers over there will give us some potatoes, or scones, or something else to appease our appetites.” This we did. We felled a tree which just reached over the little torrent. Our cook essayed the task of crossing, and safely accomplishing his journey over, called at the settler’s house, the owners of which were only too glad to do anything for us. We hailed with delight his return loaded as he was with eatables, but trouble struck when crossing over that tree again. Davie’s swag was not too well balanced, and, getting lopsided, he fell into the stream. But we hastily grabbed not only him, but the meal he ad with him, and thus our hunger was apt>eased. In partially unsettled districts there was generally a minister, who had to take his round amongst his parishioners on his old horse. Parsons, as a rule, are not good riders, and more credit to them say I, but it was the usual custom that when a minister did give you a call you were supposed to give him something to take horn© as a present to the mistress. One called one day at a parishioner’s house, and after a chapter, prayers, and the singing of the Old Hundred was about to take his departure when the good lady said: *\Na, na, you no eaun awa’ from this house emty handed. So they put the parson in the saddle and tied a fine ham on the saddle. “Noo then, meenister, I think that will carry a’ richt.” “Oh, aye, I think so, hut I’m thinking a cheese on the tither side would make a grand balance.” Wasn’t greedy was he, and certainly not a Scotchman. But I was going to tell of our breakdown camp on the Upper Owake. My mate and I didn’t know what to do, and having tented somehow, we concluded there was only one thing to do, emulate Nelson and strike out for England, home, and beauty. Fortunately for us the stream had gone down by feet in the morning, so that we were able to cross, and away we went. Mv chum said: "You go ahead and ask old Mr Dutton, who is building a new house for an hotel at the Owaka Bridge, if he can give us shelter until we get new tents.” “Why don’t you go yourself,” I asked, “as you seem to know him.” “Cfh, I can’t say I know him, but have met him, and he has the reputation of being a very fair old gentleman, and a kind friend to all, and as you always get on with everyone you meet and can ask better than I can, I think you had better go.” So I went on this mission. The party was following me as best they could, and I was to meet them at the cross-roads to let them know how I had got on with. Mr Dutton. When I met Mr Dutton I introduced myself as one of a broken-down survey party who had just had its tents blown to ribbons, and all its belongings saturated, and I asked if he could kindly provide shelter of any sort until we got new tents. “With pleasure, young fellow, my house is not yet finished, but your cfowd are very welcome to tne use of the kitchen” (a fairly large one), “and all the logs you like to burn, and the upstairs, unfinished yet, for your sleeping quarters.” This was, indeed, a great offer, and gladly did we accept it. When we got in there that night, after our experience, we thought we were in heaven, after having had a good square meal and a good Tog fire going. Then we prepared for rooet on the bare, hard boards, and thankful we were to hav© that same, and slept the sleep of the just. Dad and his wile seemed only too glad to have us for company in the evenings, so that we, being in good quarters, were in no hurry to decamp, and though a long way from our work, and having no tents, it suited us admirably. A broken-down, swell sort of a oove was down there that winter whose employment was shooting kakas and native pigeons (all of which were in great abundance then) and sending them in bundles by the timber boats to Dunedin for the poultry shops. He would see a whole squad of innocent pigeons roosting on a tree, and would wound a kaka and tease him and make him soueal, when all his pals would come round in profusion, hundreds of them, I may safely say. He had nothing to do then but reload and blaze away and fetch them down, while the poor innocont pigeons sat on their roosts and fell one by one till they wero all dead. Great sportsmen these birdcatchers. We were sorry to leave good old Dad and his good lady, as our work was getting too far away. Our first camp was just on the site where the late Mr Telford, of Clifton built a holiday residence many years afterwards, and where we had very tine bathing grounds and good flounder fishing at nights. The ship Surat had struck a rock on New Year’s morning somewhere in the vicinity of Chasland’s Mistake, and, being in a very leaky condition, and indeed foundering, the captain decided to beach her, and did so at or near the mouth of Gatlins River. Captain. Hayward, who was then in charge of the pilot station, told me that had he only

known what had hapnened, he would have met her and guided her into the mouth of the river, and thus could have been salvaged all those hundreds of tons of railway iron, which, as it happened, were never recovered. There was also a number of emigrant girls on board, to whom assistance was quickly forthcoming, for, when word reached the sawmill, all the m&n knocked off work, and all protestat ons, entreaties, and threats from the managers could not stop them from going to the aid of these girls. Man) of them were married there. Genial old Captain Hay yard, father of Councillor Hayward, then pilot master, who afterwards went down with all hands, including one of his sons, had an old chum in the person of the late Captain Tall, whose craft also foundered and went down with all hands in Foveaux Straits. Skipper Tall, as we used to call him, hid a lease of an island in Te Whaka Bay from the Government, which, uncharted and unknown, he represented to the Government as 10 acres, but which on sight must have easily been 70 acres, the rent for which was practically nothing. To give security to this h e applied for the freehold of 50 acres on the mainland, and it fell to my lot to survey this plot for him. The trouble was not the surveying of the section, but getting a connection thereto by triangulation from trig stations, or adjacent reliable work. I had a sketch from the survey officer giving all data, and showing me how to run a line due south from a given point on Catlins Lake so that I would drop into Te Whaka (or ‘‘Bloody Jack’s”) Bay. This lin© had to be cut through dense forest. It was good axemen that were wanted on that job, and we had them ? too. This forest abounded with wild cattle, and after cutting our track for a day or two we thought we heard a wild bull roaring, which, as we proceeded, grew Slainer, until at last it became almost eafening. I said I would go ahead and see what all the noise was about. Imagine my surprise when I came on the famous blow hole, now a reserve, and rightly so. My fears were that our line was going to run right into this, which would have given us a deal of extra trouble, as far as measurement was concerned, anyway. But, fortunately for us, we Just averted it. We pushed ,on with our line, and reached the coast precipitous, but there was no sign of the bay. So we knew at once there was something wrong. This would be about mid-afternoon, and when we saw* we had been misled by the chart supplied us, devoted our time to carving our names oil a kama-hi tree and putting on dates, etc. We also examined the hole. Now, much has been written about this wonderful hole, but I am goinjr to give my version, harking back to 1875. We found that it was a case of strike back to camp, and as I always carried a reliable pocket compass and knew fairly well the direction I should go, I said that as I had never found Euclid wrong was going to trust him yet, when he proves beyond all doubt that the two sides of any triangle are greater than the third side. “So,” said I, "I am going to make a bee line for camp.” This was in dense maiden bush, and they tried to persuade me not to attempt it, but I was determined to try it, and on seeing this, one said: “Well I won’t see you go by yourself. I will go with you.” “So will I,” said one of the others, while the remaining two decided to take the long route, which they were sure of. So we started, but what an entanglement ! We all carried sheath knives, and I think all knew how to handle them. He hadn’t gone very far on this rough and tumble scratch go when one of my companions said: "Look here, we are going right back to the ocean.” “Well,” said the other, “I am sure of it, for the noise of the sea is getting plainer as we go'along.” So they thought they would turn. _ "Now, look here,” I said, "it just seems the same to me, as if we were going the wrong way, but I am being guided by the compass, otherwise I’d have turned back long ago, but I know the direction, and I am going by the compass.” A little while afterwards, in imagination, they thought they heard the sea roaring louder, though we were going inland all the time, and refused to follow me any further. So I told them, that if they left me they would be lost in the busn, and got them to follow on, saying that we should be through at the river in a very short time. When we reached the river, and struck some of our old traverse lines, I was glad to cry a halt, and asked them if they did not know where they were. They looked in amazement when they recognised our old traverse tracks. “But,” said one of them, “The blessed river is running the wrong way.” Arrived at camp I found one of Guthrie and Larnach’s managers waiting for me, and wanting to know when I was. going to survey the new bush lease they had applied for. “I am too hungry to discuss business now,” I said. “So come into the galley and have a pannikin of tea, and we will have a talk afterwards.” “By jove, that’s a funny hole in the bush!” “Oh,” said he, “you’ve got a hold of that yarn. It was like this A bullock puncher lost his bullocks, and looking for them got lost himself, and was lost for two days. He was just abo't famished when he heard the axes from tho tree.fallers, and made towards them just about done. They succoured him with the lunches they had with them, revived him, and thon took him home to camp. He told them of the wonderful hole he had seen, and a party was made up to go out next Sunday and see i f r tiling ropes and all necessary appurt-.aiv ts to go down the hole. The poor bullock puncher had no idea which way to go, as you may easily imagine, as he had no compass or bear-

mg*, and this in virgin bush. So, of course, they never found it. They were for using their ropes to swing the poor bullocky to the first tree !” “All right,” said I, "That may be all true, but the lost bullocky told no lie about it, for we narrowly escaped running into it to-day. If you don’t believe me go through and see for yourself.” Sure enough he did on the following Swndijy with some of his friends, and there was the hole which they told me -J1 about afterwards. When the existence of this marvellous hole was known with the 3ea coming in with a great roar through a cave or tunnel, visitors ca m* from all parts to ses it. It was about 120 ft by 120 ft with rata trees growing out of the clefts of rock, and that together with the roar of the sea coming through the tunnel and the prosphorua was really an awesome sight. I guessed the depth roughly at 200 ft, and was not so bad a gueaser, as it was afterward® measured accurately, and I think the depth is nearly 190 feet. JJany were the accounts written of this place, one by the late Bishop Nevill, who with others went there on purpose to see it. I am sorry I did not cut out those accounts, as they would be valuable now. (To be Continued).