11

C—l

Wangaehu No. 2 Block. —Eoad opened to it from district road, near Mackenzie's. The land advertised for sale on the 10th and 12th July, 1883. Mauriceville Block. —Eoad formed from main coach-road into centre of block. Land offered for selection and sale at Masterton on the 10th and 12th July, 1883. Nelson. — Gobdcn to Seventeen-Mile Diggings. —The road has been opened through Coal Creek Valley and around the Ten-Mile Bluff for pack-horses. Grey Valley to Teremakau. —Line surveyed to Kopura and via Bell Hill towards Poerua Lake and Teremakau. A track for pack-horses has been formed from Hatter's Terrace to the swamp, near Bell Hill, and a mile has been formed at Lake Poerua. Hampden to Manda. —An excellent horse pack-track, twenty-five miles in length, has been formed through this bush-district, occupied by settlers engaged in cattle-farming and mining. The track is a great boon to a good but back-lying district. Tadmor and Sherry to Buller. —Eoad-line surveyed and first four miles of formation let; other contracts being got ready. Eoad will be formed over low saddle of Mount Owen into Hope Valley, thence to the main Buller Valley. Baton to Karamea. —Work in hands of County Council. Takaka to Karamea,. —Survey of road in progress to Salisbury open. Oronoko to Bosedale. —Work in hands of Eoad Board. Mablbobough.— Aivatere Valley Boad. —The road was formed through the Shearing Eeserve, and is now being continued farther up the valley to a junction with road from Jolly's Pass. Westland. — Mapourika to Gillespie's. —Eight miles formed and about seven miles in progress. Mahitahi to Haast. —The last six miles of this line are now under contract and nearly finished; when completed there will be a good inland track from Mahitahi to the mouth of the Waita. This and the former road are parts of the future main road-line from Hokitika to Jackson's Bay, and to Wanaka (Otago) via Haast Pass. The line is entirely through Crown lands, mostly bush, which but for this opening by horse-track would be for ever hopelessly shut against the settler and miner. Mathias Pass Boad. —This line has been carefully surveyed and graded across the dividing range. On the Westland side it has been benched, and as yet is only fit for foot. On the Canterbury side the track from the pass down to the "Upper Eakaia Valley has had more done to it, but it also is only as yet fit for foot-traffic. Kumara to Beach. —This work is in the hands of the County Council. About two miles of clearing and formation have been let. Other two miles would take the road to the beach. Canterbury.— Upper Ashley over Kuku Pass. —This road is being opened out by the Ashley Eoad Board. Its course is along a series of narrow well-grassed valleys, which command a large area of good pastoral country, all on Crown lands. Oxford Bush to Upper Ashley. —This road penetrates the Oxford Bush, and crosses by a low saddle into the Upper Ashley. Clearing and formation of a little over throe miles let, in six small contracts, by the Eoad Board. When this and Kuku Pass Eoad meet they will form a through loop-line behind the front range of the Canterbury Plains. Teviotdale and Waikari. —Eoads .in these two districts were laid out to give access to the pastoral deferred-payment sections (sold the 24th April) from the main roads and railway-system. The works have been in progress since last summer, and are now well forward. Village and Deferred-payment Blocks. —Several minor works have been done in opening these blocks by the Eoad Boards of the districts in which they are situated. Otago.— Beaumont to Miller's Flat. —Eoad-works well advanced. A considerable amount of rock-cutting has had to be done, or the road might have been opened throughout. Eoads through Blocks VIII. and X., Benger, to Bun No. 106, now all settled with deferredpayment settlers, and Kelso to Block XIII., Greenvale, also settled, have all been completed. Tapanui Railway to Bun No. 140. —This run was disposed of on pastoral deferred payment, a road having previously been contoured and formed over the dividing ridge to the surveyed sections. A further sum of £500 is now being expended in the formation of the end of the road next the rail-way-line. To open up Otago and Southland Runs.- —The principal works have been in the Strath-Taieri and Nenthorn Districts. A suspension-bridge of one span, costing £3,000, is now in course of erection over the rocky gorge of the Taieri Eiver, lower end of Strath-Taieri, immediately opposite the new Government Township of Sutton, through which the Otago Central Eailway is pegged off. From this bridge a road has been lined out, graded, and formed to Moonlight Flat, thereby connecting with the Macrae's Eoad. Another road has been lined out through Eun 39a to the Nenthorn Stream, where another bridge, with suitable graded approaches, disposes of that rocky gorge, and gives access by a good dray-road to 8,000 acres of good agricultural land near Mount Stoker, sectionally surveyed, and now being mapped preparatory to disposal. These bridges and roads link together a great basin of country, which by their means concentrates on the future railway-station at Sutton ■ —a point that will be only thirty-five miles by rail from Dunedin. At present Sutton is fifty-two miles from Dunedin, by a long, dreary, toilsome road up and down steep hills to Outrain, which utterly precludes the idea of sending agricultural produce to market. The opening of the railway to Sutton will bring the Strath-Taieri District within forty miles of Dunedin, almost as near as the Tokomairiro Plain. Further up the Taieri and above Hyde a road is now in course of formation through what was a part of Eun 210, but since surveyed into pastoral deferred-payment sections, and sold on the 28th February at from £1 15s. to £3 2s. 6d. per acre. A road of four miles has been made from Cromwell Bridge up the east bank of the Clutha Eiver to the flat country up the valley. The formation of this line keeps open the through communication to the settlements of the Upper Clutha Valley independently of the bridges. Through Buns 177 and 257. —This country, known as the Waikawa Buns, contains 30,000 acres of open well-grassed valleys, at present shut in by bush and hills. The soil is good, and the country well adapted for settlers on the ordinary farming-scale. The leases fell in last year, but the greater