LAST LINK COMPLETED

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1933, Page 12

LAST LINK COMPLETED

WANGANUI TO PIPIRIKI ROAD. AN HISTORIC WATERWAY. Wanganui, Nov. 29. Next Saturday will see the formal opening of the Ruapirau Bridge—the last link on the road running from Wanganui to Pipiriki. The Wanganui River is the greatest water highway in New Zealand, and the heart of what was once the most thickly populated Maori district in the Dominion. The road runs up the right-hand bank. For the first time since the river was discovered by Kupi, away back in the centuries, the comings and goings of people will be as equally frequent along its banks as on the water. The old river has seen many phases—just the silence and only the birds, then a community of the most interesting “small” people in the world, completely isolated by impenetrable bush —their only road, the river. How they came, and from whence, no one knows, but tradition says that they—the people of the land (tangata whenua)—were here when the Maori came.

They and the Maoris paddled and poled the great length of the riyer, branching off at old tracks to pa, kainga er cultivating ground. Almost the whole length of the river shows these old poling holes sloping at the same angle up-stream, made by many generations of polers, pushing their heavy canoes up-stream by means of a stout pole called a “toko.” There were thousands of canoes to be seen on the river, with their picturesque freight of brown men and women, children and eel-pots. Then came the white man, and theriver boat, .which superseded the canoe/ and now the even faster motor-car jnthe new road; The mails, which for -I 1 ), years have been carried up the water highway, are now picked up at Koriniti and brought the last 30 miles by car. In the New Year they will also be taken up-river 30 miles. It was in 1880 that the New Zealand Government decided to undertake the navigation of the Wanganui River, and properly equipped punts were built and snagging parties engaged. For some 50 years the development of the river country went steadily on, steamers plied up and down, settlers made their homes, and all were dependent on the river for access. Thousands of pounds have been spent by the River Trust Board on keeping ,the river navigable, and the water highway is world renowned for its beaufy. The fact that so much money bad been spent on the highway and its equipment of boats, punts, etc., was one of the principal arguments against the construction of a road, but determined efforts have resulted in the Government constructing a road from Wanganui to Pipiriki, and so on into the King Country. Now the very last fink is completed—the Ruapirau bridge.