ON THE TAIRUA TRACK.

Thames Star, Volume LXII, Issue 17353, 1 May 1928, Page 5

ON THE TAIRUA TRACK.

MERCURY BAY TOWNSHIP. PAVED WITH PIPIS. FROM BUSHMEN TO FISHERMEN. [This is the eighteenth of a series of articles descriptive of a tour of three days in company with the Minister of Public Works (the Hon. K. S. Williams), written for "The Thames Star” by "RURU.”] The first thing that strikes one about the town of Mercury Bay is the whiteness of its streets, and it is only upon examination that one notices that the place is literally paved with pipis. These pipis make an ideal road, especially at night, and when the shells are ground up by the action of the traffic the surface is one that is the envy of the motorist. A progressive little place is Mercury Bay. First, there is the hotel, and it is a surprise to more than one of the party to find away over the range an hotel which is more modern than any in Thames and more up-to-date than ninety-nine per cent, of the city hostelries. Built to cater for tourist trade, which the farseeing proprietor (Mr Chadban) saw must eoine when the delights of the Bay became known, it is already too small for requirements, and additions are contemplated. They Knew Their Wants. “The Chief” had several deputations at the Bay, and it was particularly noticeable that the speakers knew what they wanted, and, better still, knew how to express it in the fewest of words. Windiness wearies a Minister just as much as the rest of us, and a request backed up by a torrent of verbiage, has less chance of getting a favourable consideration than the brief and pithy exposition of the facts. There was one speaker on the tour who—but, as Kipling says, -“that is another story.” The Fall of the Kauri. Mercury Bay is the former centre of the kauri timber industry on this coast, and shows all the marks of a town which had lost its money, but not its punch, if the simile may be used. When the bush cut out here it seemed like the end of the world to the timber-getters who, for a time, struggled on by going out into other districts and left their families ' here whilst they took on work in the King Country and other parts. But, as these other hushes gradually cut out, the position became more acute. The Lure of the Bay.

True, there was some fine dairy country opening up, but we are not all dairymen, and the strain of keeping up two homes or moving the family became too great, and something had to be done. Now, it is a fact that anyone who has lived in Mercury Bay will tell you, once you live there you don’t want to live anywhere else. It must be something in the air, or the beach, or the water, or oh, well! something, anyhow. Then rose the question for these men: “We’ve gpt our homes in the Bay; we don’t want to leave it. What are we going to do to make a living?” Then someone had a brain wave. It was known that the grounds outside were good for fish, hut it was never dreamt that they were as are, simply teeming with the finest fish in th.? ocean. This was discovered. The Rise" of the Fish. Here was the solution of the problem. The hush-workers would turn commercial fishermen. Led by a few old hands that is just what they did. At-, .first there were but two launches usable for commercial fishing in the Bay, and men went out in all sorts of craft—old tubs, ancient cutters, long since fit for litOe hut river work; some men even started fishing in the river from dinghies—but the problem was solved, and, from being a dead end, Mercury Bay became a busy fishing port. That was not all the problem, however. The only thing that could be done was to smoke the catches and send them to Auckland once a week by the weekly steamer. This was not satisfactory, for the fish were too good to smoke. Thames Lends a Hand. In their trouble, then, the Mercury Bay people turned to Thames to help them, and Thames did not fail them. Two companies, after conference with the fishermen, arranged to take their 'catches and purchase them. To do this successfully it was necessary for these companies to erect cool stores at Mercury Bay and maintain staffs of men to deal with the fish when they came in. “Fish by the Ton.” In parenthesis let “Ruru” mention that a Mercury Bay fisherman’s idea of “a decent catch” would stagger the ordinary member of the public, and would put the ordinary angler’s fish story right out of court as a very amateur performance. The hard shell Mercury Bay fisherman doesn’t waste breath talking about “bundles of fish,” as your usual New Zealand commercial fisherman does. Not he. He talks in terms of tons and half-tons of fish, and when you mildly hint that a couple of tons of fish is a bit of a “stretcher” for two men to catch in one tide, he doesn’t get wild with you for doubting his word—he just takes you along to one or other, of the sheds and shows you the fish and the docket of its weight. If one boat, with its two-man crew, has less than a half-ton of fish —caught on the hand-line, too, mark you—none of your seine netting here to kill all the spawn and starve out the rest of the fish—he reckons quietly that it’s been a hit of a poor day, but, brightly: “We’ll get a couple of ton to-morrow if the easterly holds off.” Figures, when you see th’em in cold print, are uninteresting things, but it is a fact that the two fishermen of one boat that “Ruru” knows pocketed a cheque for £lO5/11/8 for three weeks’ work. Of course, it is not ali plums, and the needs of the fishermen are many.