To Be Seen In OTAGO CENTRAL A Korero Report

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 6, 23 April 1945, Page 3

To Be Seen In OTAGO CENTRAL A Korero Report

At the end of the day our notebooks and sketching-pads looked as though they had floated down the

Kawarau River, washed ashore, and been picked up out of the mud. Nor was our own appearance much better. The crossing of a desert, a temperature of nearly 100 degrees, a visit to a coalmine, a cemetery, and a gold-mine were the reasons— desert was dusty, the temperature a furnace blast, the coalmine dripping wet, the cemetery almost lost in thistles, and the gold-mine an enlarged rabbit-burrow. At least there is variety to be seen round Cromwell, Otago Central.

. The prevailing wind in Otago Central is a Head Wind ; geography books say westerly, but if you travel for long by bicycle, as we did, you quickly find how wrong they are. And the adage that what goes up must come down just doesn’t apply : the prevailing hills are all uphill. On the way to Bannockburn, a teaspoonful of a settlement about five miles from Cromwell, we stopped for a few minutes in the shade outside what a large notice told us was the Cromwell Borough Council Public Pound. On it was a scale of charges for the sustenance of enough different animals to provide a foundation for a second Noah’s Ark ; and what a mix-up there would be if all were impounded at once. Included in the list were horses, mares, geldings, colts, fillies, and foals ; mules and asses ; bulls, oxen, cows, steers, and calves ; goats ; sows, boars, and pigs ; rams, ewes, wethers, and lambs. But for that day at least the joke was on the council : in the large paddock, quietly

feeding without interference from either man or beast, were nine sleek rabbits.

Coal deposits in New Zealand have been estimated, after scientific survey, at several thousand million tons, and if the present rate of mining continues— at about two and a quarter million tons a year—fields will last almost indefinitely. To the national economy of New Zealand, therefore, the four or five small coalmines scattered over Otago Central are not, at present, of great significance; together they produce each year about 7,500 tons of lignite, which in quality does not compare well with the more hotly burning, harder, cleaner bituminous coals found on the West Coast and in other parts of New Zealand. In the past, however, the coal mined in Otago Central has been of incalculable value not only to the local population, but to the country as a whole. Such a position may arise again. •

Except where irrigation has brought water to relieve the dryness, Otago Central is, and has been, almost entirely treeless. To the early settler who had no alternative to building his home and planting his crops immediately, before stores were exhausted, country which was already free of trees and thick vegetation and which could be ploughed without difficult clearing was an advantage. But, later, the work of the gold-miner, who needed timber for sluice-boxes and for props to support the mine-shafts, was made almost impossible. All wood was in constant demand : prices paid were high, and an ordinary gin-case, for instance, worth a few pence would often bring as much as £3. Deposits of coal,

close at hand and able to be mined without difficultly, were some compensation : and with the coming of the gold-dredg-ing boom in the early “ seventies,” in a country so entirely destitute of forests or native vegetation suitable for fuel, this lignite was of inestimable value not only for domestic use, but also for supplying the motive power without which the evolution of the modern dredge would have been delayed many years.

The road to the Cairnmuir Coal-mine runs through a desert on each side stretch expanses of fine white sand growing only an occasional thistle and supporting nothing but an odd dis-couraged-looking rabbit. Ridges of sand are heaped over the road. Everything is as dry as dust, and looking as thirsty. As far as can be seen there is nothing green or even a discoloured brown, no grass-blade or tree-leaf. (This is Wild West, you think. Every minute you expect a Mexican to pop up from behind a cactus, or a Tom Mix film director from behind a megaphone.) The mine is in a valley which for about eighty years has been torn and bitten into by shafts ; . as the coal has been exhausted, or as continued operation has become either too difficult or too expensive, new infiltrations have been made. The present working is cornered snugly into the hillside, and each day the gang of five men bring to the surface and send to the railhead at Cromwell between 20 and 30 tons of a high-grade lignite. According to the manager, fields in the area are extensive. The mine could

be enlarged, more men employed, and production increased considerably, without difficultly ; against this, however, are chances of labour troubles, and more important, uncertainty of demand after the war for lignite coal in a country with plentiful supplies of higher-grade bituminous coals. Research into coal utilization overseas, and in New Zealand to a limited extent, may give the answer ; already more than 2,000 uses have been

found for coal, and such research is in its infancy. Already it has been found that the coal from the Cairnmuir Mine will produce So gallons of petrol to the ton. One day, perhaps, coal-mining in Otago Central will. again be as profitable and active as it was in the days of the gold dredges. * On the opposite bank of the Kawarau River from which Cromwell is built rises a large plateau which is as flat as an air strip and which is as dry and parched as most of the rest of unirrigated Otago Central. Rabbits live there, nothing else. Several years ago a scheme was devised to lift water from the river to the rich soil of the plateau and to plant a large orchard. A suspension bridge, costing was built across the river. But the scheme fell through. There now are the bridge, the rabbits, two fig-trees, and one almond-tree. Nothing else remains. Heaped along the banks of the river, stretching in from the water for fifteen yards or more, are high hills of stones the size of pumpkins and as smooth ; it’s not, as you may imagine in the heat, that the earth in the intensity of the sun has been

scorched and trembled into huge blisters of stone, but the tailings from the gold dredges which for years chewed and clawed into the river beds and banks, greedily grabbed the gold, and left behind an ugly ruination of what had been rich country. Now it’s too lade to ask the question whether it would have been better to have forgotten or ignored the intensity of wealth gained from gold for the continuity of return which could have been available from orchards and farms. The answer is obvious enough. Nor is the matter of no importance : everywhere in Otago Central is this scarred country, pitted and pocked ; thousands and thousands of acres must have been ruined forever.

“ ' Gold is where it is, and where it is is not I ’ : it’s an old Cornish saying, but I reckon it can be used for my epitaph. If all the tunnels I’ve burrowed without finding a streak of colour were put into line they’d stretch from here to Dunedin and halfway back again. I’ve been trying for forty years, and maybe it’ll be this time . . . but I try no more ; it’s the finish.” Cromwell’s carpenter, a gold-miner in his spare time, apparently an optimist all the time, grinned goodhumouredly, put his change in his pocket, .and asked us over to the plateau across the Kawarau, near the suspension bridge, to have a look at his latest enterprise. We crossed the gray, swirling river in a most imprudent looking cradle slung on cables attached to trees on either bankit was the quickest way to the mine, the carpenter said ; it was the quickest way' into the river we thought. We slithered across safely. Down the vertical ladder we climbed to the bottom of the shaft ; it was as dark as a black cat ; above us, shining like a threepence on a church plate, was a small square of sunlight which penetrated the gloom for no more than a few feet. Straight ahead, leading into blackness, was the main shaft ; and along this we crawled on hands and knees, the low, timbered roof even then pressing on our backs. It was damp, but not dripping wet like the coal-mine. Now it was eerily, startlingly black, impenetrable; darker than night ever could be. We took a sharp turn, through the distance was the faintest pinpoint of light : it

was the carpenter’s mate working with a miner’s carbide lamp. At the end of the tunnel the roof was higher, we were able to stand half-crouching.

All equipment and timbering had to to be lowered down the shaft by windlass and dragged along the tunnel; the dirt to be panned for samples at the river’s edge had to be taken up the same way. Later a main shaft would be tunnelled through the hillside to the river-bank, and a truck line laid down. It would quickly be decided then whether “ where it was, were or were not ” the carpenter and his mate. We came back across the river with our backs aching, but also with about a pennyweight of gold hidden in our tobacco pouches. Under instruction, we washed a sample pan of dirt in the river. Already a living could be made from panning alone. But the mates were after bigger things. Bran, shottee, or nuggets —they didn’t mind as long as it was there and didn’t “ fizzle.” Maybe they’d be lucky.

During the depression, when building, like most trades, was at a standstill, the carpenter had panned for gold under a

relief scheme allowing 14s. gd. a week tucker money. Equipment was provided, the cost of it later deducted from the gold return. In two years he obtained two ounces ; he calculated that the dirt he washed returned one penny a barrow. Boots were £2 a pair. His mates included former racehorse owners, bookmakers, a clergyman, clerks, paperhangers, publicans, and farmers. Only one struck rich : he pegged and worked a claim which returned gold worth more than Soon after he went bankrupt : the dreary years of the depression weighed too heavily, for some time he lived an orgy of spending which, finally, left him poorer by far than when he started, more unfortunate than his mates.

“ Go and see the old cemetery : that will tell you something of the days the early settlers and gold-miners lived through,” said the carpenter. We went, pushing against the Prevailing Wind. “ That’ll do you no good : it’s full. You’d do better to try the new one ; it’s only a little farther out of the town,” said the barman, who had a beard, helpfully, when we called in for direction to this old-time cemetery.

Much of the lettering on the stones, especially on those facing north, had been bleached unreadable by years of that hot sun. The gate creaked mournfully, anciently—suitably—when we opened it; it might have been the first

time it had been opened for long enough ; it certainly had been years since any practicable attention had been given to the ground. Weeds choked everywhere, thick and wild, thistles stood higher than the tombstones; we had to clear them to read the inscriptions. We 'sat on the steps of one of the stones, ate blackberries we could pick without -rising, and considered this curious burialground ; compared the smooth, safe easiness of living to-day (at least in New -Zealand) with the harsh, tough, day-to-day existence of less than eighty years ago. Average age of death shown on the tombstones was about, probably less than, thirty years, for the women as well as for the men; there was hardly one inscription with the age above forty years. “ Life how short, Eternity how long,” read one epitaph. How true. One husband, who died aged twenty-two, was buried with his wife, aged twenty. Many wives, some of them mothers of families, had died even younger.

Causes of death also were shown. Most common were falls from horses, falls of earth and rock, drownings in the Kawarau and Molyneux Rivers, and drownings in floods. Those buried there had come to Otago Central from all over the world—from the counties of England and Ireland, from Scotland, several from the Continent; Chinese lettering was over two or three of the graves (had the souls of the occupants reached the Land of their Ancestors ? we wondered, thinking of the ancient and usually honoured custom which to ensure immortality, demands the return of the body of a dead Chinese to China. We remembered, too, the ship that was chartered to take from New Zealand to China the remains of about five hundred Chinese who had died, been buried, and later disinterred. Off the coast, the ship struck a reef, the captain and twelve men were drowned, and the cargo of corpses went not to China, but to the bottom of the sea).

It wasn’t that the Head Wind had stopped prevailing as we cycled to the country dance which was to be held a few miles from Alexandra; it was just

that our informant had not made it plain in which direction we had to travel. So carefully memorizing, and often repeating, all our instructions, the number of corners we had to pass before turning left, and later right, and not forgetting the landmarks we had to look for— “ to miss the way is impossible ” — we carefully set off south instead of north with the wind behind us. We arrived at the dance at 10.30. The orchestra was playing a slow fox-trot ; six couples were on the floor, three of them girls dancing together. Round the walls were about fifty or sixty girls, their mothers, and sometimes younger brothers and sisters. There was hardly a man, father, son, or partner, in the hall : they were all outside. Dancing doesn’t seem very popular at Otago Central dances, we thought. Next on the programme was a Palmer Waltz, followed by an every-body-hold-hands-and-jump sort of thing. In three minutes fifty couples were dancing, and there was no doubting their enjoyment. . It’s not that they’re not fond of dancing, we concluded, but just modern dancing that they can’t see the fun of. Even the old-time dances of the cities don’t yet seem to have arrived in Otago Central ; any step

devised after the turn of the centuryjust doesn’t get a show. The threepiece orchestra struck up with a modern waltz, but the steps done to it were not a modern waltz, but something old-time. We talked to a farmer about irrigation in the district. * Next morning before catching the bus for Roxburgh, we went to look over his farm. ft was an example of what irrigation has done for the country. No longer uncomfortable in a starched collar and dark suit, unshaven, pipe smoking noisily, he came from the house his father had built sixty years ago from stone blocks (packed with clay) quarried from a hillside on the property ; the outbuildings were of the same material, and all were standing as solidly, as picturesquely, as cool in summer and warm in winter, as watertight all the year, as when they first sheltered this pioneer family.

Under thirteen schemes, 55,000 acres are irrigated in Otago Central ; for more than fifteen years now the country has been surveyed, and after the Avar further development schemes will be put into operation. It is expected that it will be possible to water artificially about 400,000 acres. In the early days

races needed to carry water to sluicing claims a long way from the rivers were constructed by gold-miners until the district had been covered with a network of small channels. Gradually the gold boom died ; many of the miners, finding it hard to make a living, were forced to grow vegetables and similar produce to augment their supplies ; and quickly realizing the futility of relying on rainfall for moisture they began using these water-races to carry water to their crops. In this way irrigation began in Otago Central. Since then it has been developed over the years, mostly by different Governments but also by individuals, companies, and local bodies.

Irrigation has increased the carryingcapacity of Otago Central land from one sheep to five acres (or even 10 acres) to four sheep (and even more) to one acre. Moreover, as soon as the land has become worth the expense,, money has been made available to attack the rabbit pest, to reduce it, later to keep it under control : Brer Rabbit has had, in many districts, to lay his ears back and find fresh pastures. Sheep in Otago Central have increased from 53,000 in 1917 to 256,000 in 1936 ; and now they are classed as fats. The increase in cattle and pigs is in much the same proportion. Most of the constructional workthe building of dams, and channel mg to the farm boundaries—has been financed by the Governments and the work carried out by the Public Works Department. Operational costs are more than covered by revenue (water charges, &c.) ; and, although there is not the usual return that could be expected from the capital outlay made, the indirect returnfrom railways

revenue, the increase in the value of land, and the boost to our national economy—is tremendous. Water charges vary from Bs. to 14s. an acre a year, according to the district (the average is about 10s.).

On the farm we walked up to our knees through clover ready for not the first, not a second, but a third cutting. The farm of 160 acres carries 500 ewes — last year with Southdown rams they produced 700 crossbred lambs. The practice of the farmer is to buy five-year-old ewes, get two lambs from them, and then sell again. In this way his flock is renewed continually. In addition to the pasture paddocks, there are a large orchard and several acres used for lucerne. Rabbits were cleared years ago : in some of the drives more than four hundred of the pests were killed to the acre.

For the dry period of the year the quota allows for the distribution of water (costing 10s. an acre a year) for four days of each week, but because of the dangers of over-irrigation it is taken only every second week. Alongside is a farm which has been irrigated too thoroughly: giant rushes rear their heads, thistles are everywhere. “ Can’t be too careful,” says the farmer.

Over the fence of the clover paddock, with its growth 18 in. high, is land which under the present scheme cannot be reached by irrigation water. It is as bare of growth of any sort as an apple is of buttons; acres of it ; nothing, not a solitary—-yes, there’s a thistle, one lonely, spiky, thirsty thistle. A plague of caterpillars couldn’t have left that paddock any emptier. Near the fence two hares lope about, waiting to return to the lushness of the clover from the glint in the farmer’s eye they had better mind their p’s and q’s. One day—the sooner is the better, says the farmer —that land, too, will be irrigated, and it will be just as productive as the

rest of the farm.

We cycled back against the Prevailing Wind to catch the bus. We had a bag of peaches from the farmer’s orchard.

No, we hadn’t room for a fat lamb. The dust made us, too, feel the need of irrigation.