WHARERTA HILL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16112, 28 April 1923, Page 5

WHARERTA HILL.

(To the Editor of the Herald.) Sir.—Metalling operations hero have now ceased pending better weather conditions. Doubtless this, means a halt until next October or November, or even later. . -Progress. this,,past season must bo regarded ns very satisfactory, considering tho long distance of haulage, with an uphill climb all the way, and the vagaries of the Wharerata climate to contend with. There is a gap of approximately six miles between, the ends of the metalling at Wharerata and Tarewa,, and. this six miles, or portions of it, is the only break in an otherwise good all-weather road connecting Gisborne with the good road systems of the southern districts. If the same rate of progress had obtained at tho Tarewa end as at Wharerata,; many of the bad spots might have been 'made passable, thus, ensuring a workable road for ear traffic throughout the winter. Whilst ten or twelve lorries were working on Wharerata, laying stone at the rate of five or six chains length in a day, what do we find at Tarewa? Two horse-drawn affairs, working at Rip Van Winkle pace, laying but a few yards daily. This represents the activities of the Public Works Department in the vicinity of the Tarewa Hill this past summer. There is a dump of several thousand yards of metal ready to be put on this hill, but evidently no lorries were available for the job. Failing these, drays would surely have been better than to have the stone lying idle as at present, and this hill, the horror of. motorists and the execration of settlers, remains much as it was fifteen or twenty years ago. Now that the formation and re-grading of this road is practically completed, it behoves Gisbornites. to be thoroughly alive to their interests, and to see that they have not only a. metalled road, hut a gravel-finish-ed, one to boot. Surely the settlers in this locality are a long-suffering lot. For years they have been rated for this road, and outside motor traffic, which contributes not a penny towards its upkeep, comes tearing up and making into a quagmire generally, their only means of communication with the outside world. This past week, car after car was bogged in the locality of Tarewa, and I venture to suggest that some decidedly lurid and unparliamentary language, directed at the powers that he, oozed from the slimo.of this plague-spot in the mirage of Gisborne's arterial road. —Yours, etc.,

WANDERING WILKIE.