BY COACH ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17710, 3 December 1925, Page 6

BY COACH ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS.

DUNEDIN EXHIBIT AWAKENS MEMORIES. ‘(Special to the “Star.”) DUNEDIN, December 3. Wearing a gold watch guard and medal inscribed “ From the Citizens of Westport for Courage displayed in 1905." Noel Pahl, though still a comparatively young man, had historic memories awakened as he stood in the motor pavilion at Logan Park to-day before a Cob£> and Co. coach that in the third year of its retirement ta :?.s a humble place as a link in the pageant representing-the evolution of tr msporta tion. It was not this particular coach that Driver Pahl guided over precipitous Arthur’s Pass for eleven years before the coming of the Otira Tunnel swept the romantic coach age to the Limbo of things past and gone. But, fine or wet—and his fresh, but weather-marked face tells of a hundred and one drenching climbs—for that decade and mere, Pahl, who is still working among the horses at Greymouth, was one of *he human links between the civilisations of the East and West. As a figure in New Zealand's latter pioneer days he is, therefore, an interesting visitor to the Dominion’s Wembley. The sight of the old coach among the mongrel buggies and ramshackle automobiles of the 1903 era pained him ! a little, but, realising that few know what that coach and its scattered mates meant to thousands in the days when Royal Mail ” in golden letters embellished its sides, he solaces himself and thrills the genuinely interested inquirer with stirring tales of Otira's now silent highway—the last of New Zealand’s coach routes. A man who earned the Y.C. of the ! road, his narrations are modest and matter-of-fact in all save one rec< llec-tlon—-the Otira coaching fraternity's wonderful record for freedom from accidents. There have been people killed while riding coaches. The most serious that Pahl can recall is the sad result of a capsize twelve or thirteen years ago. when, though no one was killed md few were physically hurt. a newlywedded couple became demented and <are still in a mental hospital. there was also the famous King case of a few years back. when, after argument referred to the Privy Council, plaintiff got heavy damages against the coach company for partial disablement of an arm, caused through the collar-bone being fractured in a coach accident. “Two K.C.’s were in the coach az the time/' Pahl said. “ T don’t know whether that had anything to dc with the protraction of the litigation.” The accident which his handsome medal recalls happened on the Bu'ler Road, when a coach capsized. Pa libs rescue work was so gallant That. Westport citizens gave him the watchgu nd and chain at a public presentation. The practical immunity the road had from tragedies and accidents Pahl bluntly attributes to sheer luck, but as slips were of almost uncanny frequency in the last, days of the road as a Royal highway obviously some credit is due to Pahl and his mates. To the experienced drivers who were with the coaches to the last memorable dav—and from Pahl’s lips dropped such names as Joe Searle. Bill Rugg. Jerry Sinclair, Arthur Goodyer, Bill Campbell, Frank Woods, Fred and Roy Hail, and Dear Old Archie Hall, eighty-five and still going mighty strong when progress, not time’s mere passage, demanded the reins from him—is due a dace in the niche of the history that New Zealand's exhibition epitomises at Dunedin to-day.