EPISODES OF TRAVEL

Taranaki Daily News, 7 November 1932, Page 12 (Supplement)

EPISODES OF TRAVEL

SEEING OHURA BY CAR PLEASANT AND PAINFUL JOURNEY JVHY CARS ARE NOT NUMEROUS. Getting from Matiere to Ohura after lain is not just the simple matter of driving the nine and a half miles that separate these two main townships of the Ohura county. At first, the visitor is delighted at the easy travelling over the metalled Toad through a rapidly developing farming district to Niho Niho. There he has something to occupy his attention, all the time, with fresh avenues of interest and new sources of speculation opening out at each turn; As his car spins along the narrow but well surz&ced stretches he is able to catch glimpses of well grassed paddocks, •Wooded hillsides and winding creeks. He does not travel so fast that he is unable to retain definite impressions of fine quality in dairy herds, well conditioned from the succulent and rather marvellous growth of sheltered flats that abound on either side. He sees healthy flocks of sheep nearer the timber, or dotting emerald green slopes, and, thus occupied, he is yet able to note the many signs of apparent prosperity’ in recently painted farmsteads, commodious sheds,, plantations, hedges, bay, ensilage' and substantial fences. He has only to pause on some eminence to appreciate the work of by-gone years and visualise the reward to come. The resources of a surprising country litre thus discovered, and a visitor is quick to learn that when settlers menwon the richness of the Niho Niho or Otangiwai valleys and speak of them as containing some of the finest dairy land in the Ohura, they are remarking upon what may well be a fact. Ard so Niho Niho is reached without a thought of trouble. But when the motorist crosses the railway’bridge out of the township =he remembers ■ 'the gloomy forbodings ;of his Matiere friends, and immediately stops to make aure that the next stage of the journey —-the part that knows -not the security of metal—-is really as hopeless as he has been told. A FEELING OF INSECURITY. He listens with growing .apprehension ip. tho views of a passing horseman. The. word picture is alarming, but, of course, that man can only be used to horses. He is biassed and prejudiced, and, anyway, hadn’t been ■ over; since, yesterday. Not a great deal of rain; had fallen during the night, so the tourist makes a fiO per cent, cut;on. pessimistic predictions, and hastens for assurance to someone more used. to looking upon mud holes through , a windscreen. “Is it really as bad as all that?” he gasps. "Ay. I wouldna’ tackle it myself the day, but mind , you, ye may be able to straddle the deeper holes and mebby you’ll miss the softer places.” - The man with his car safe in the garage took a casual glance at'the sky, gave the front tyre a kick and cast a disparaging eye over the shining paint work. He said, a couple of flivvers came to Ohura that morning, but they had travelled the river road from Taumaranui, and kept to the metal all the way, through Tokirima. The visitor sniffs, and observes he has not yet met his optimist,

“But I was told, the unmetalled part this road only. extends for. two. or three miles. On a main road like this, surely it cannot be quite impossible to get through?” he observed. “Well, you know your own car. How did. you find the mud between Mahirakau and Matiere?

“By driving into it.” “Ay, and that’s quite possible. I don’t doubt you can find the next jjatch in the same manner.”

He spat out the stub of the motorfet’fl second-last cigarette, and made a characteristic farewell. The man who couldn’t wait for the road to dry watched him round the corner, and found himself wondering why carelessly adjusted' braces seem such an integral part of life in the back-blocks. He then fevered out his sack of chains and began a tiresome operation on the rear wheels. .Within half a mile the merry gingle of chains on metal changed to a squelching gurgle that died away altogether as ■wheels ploughed into the real stuff. With engine racing in low and wheels missing their grip every half turn, he tackled the first hill. Hound the first bend, ti-tree tops had been laid in the deep wheel tracks, but they afforded but poor grip owing to the semi-liquid state of the sub-soil. These wheel tracks, by the way, had been gouged down to a depth approximating anythinc from a foot to three feet, and afforded excellent facilities for the study of strata formation, or soil composition. The deeper places were apparently watertight, and when the visitor lost a rhain in one, he had to fish it out with the aid of a long piece of wire. It was quite submerged, and was recovered with the greatest difficulty, practically hidden beneath a covering of liquid substance, yellow in colour, sticky to the touch and ruinous on clothes. DIRTY WORK. Obviously, progress could only be e by keeping the car on ridges ranning between the water-courses, a policy sound in theory but almost impossible

in practice. Each corner was a deliberate trap, a snare, and a delusion. If he kept to the outside edge, a gaping wheel rut veered across his line ,of progress. If he regarded the middle of the quagmire as sound tactics, he slipped off his ridge in making the turn. If he hugged the bank, he found the channels workmen had dug under the impression that they could persuade water to drain into the water-tables. He thought a lot about those water-tables during the next half hour. After repeatedly having to back his car down the slope to take another thrust at lumps of clay, after slipping repeatedly into the very deepest of all deep wheel ruts, and after forcing his car at impossible angles to get out of them, after bumping into the bank on one hand and grazing the edge of the slope on the other, he finally reached the top and had time to smoke the remaining cigarette while waiting .for his companion. The companion, be it noted, was wise in his generation, and, with sundry remarks about fools and motorcars, had left the vehicle feeling slightly sea-sick at the first check, and negotiated the hill on foot. He had quite a thrilling story to relate, but the driver wasn’t interested. MERITS OF TRAIN TRAVEL. ' Goinw down was easier, but a fearful sight met their gaze at the foot. There, a creek had mistaken its function, and had left its bed to wander casually over the roadway. And a wonderful job it made of its peregrinations. Sternly for- 1 bidding his companion again to desert the sinking ship while the bonnet was yet showing, the driver plunged in recklessly. There ensued a period of plunging, bucking and slithering with agonising moments when involuntary pauses were made, or when progress resolved into a crab-wise motion with the front wheels following quite a different track from the labouring ones at the back. If he had wanted to, the companion could not get out, for frequently the tide lapped against the side of the car. To have opened the door might have been to drown. At length firmer ground was reached, and reasonably good progress was made to a point about half way up the next hill, where thoughtful settlers had ■ laid . logs, branches and pieces of; wood to form a • kind, of corduroy road.. Unfortunately, some of the locs stood out of the mud while others had sunk out of sight. Still, they gave a grip to the ’ chains. The companion, who insisted 1 on- walking again, was able to give a wonderfully vivid account of the passage. Once again the visitor-stopped on an eminence to appreciate-the work of bygone years, and’ to visualise the reward to come. That two and a-half or three miles to the metal at -Toi Toi .will long be remembered by the visitor, and longer by his companion. Within sight of safety, a particularly bad place had to be crossed, and when the metal was finally ypaebpd the beautiful shining car, the joy of its owner’s heart, appeared as though blazed from bumper to box with dirty yellow mud, a touvenir that remained throughout the. trip.. Meanwhile, Ohura smiled in brilliant sunshine, its trees nodded to a gentle breeze; but neither the sun nor the breeze appeared able to exert any influence upon the nightmare road that links Niho Niho to Ohura in wet weather. Verily, the words of the ancient engine driver who leaned from his cab at°a crossing which later held up the visitors provided considerable food for thought. The tourist had impatiently blown his horn for the third time. “Are you chaps in a hurry?” inquired the engineer. '’You bet we are.” "Well then, why the devil don’t you take the train!” came the reply.