Doing it on the Wild West Coast
nitpicker1:
When we moved here there were several "squatters" cribs/batches on the beach side of the main road where road realignments had left room for building. Most of their owners were disposessed and ordered to remove them, but some were given temporary lifetime title. Freedom campers illegally use the empty sites now. ;D I must find out whether the owners of those still there must allow public use of their premises.
Kiwithrottlejockey:
From the Otago Daily Times....
Going West
The opening of the road lining Central Otago and Haast
in November 1960 was a defining moment for Westland.
But there are so many stories, it's hard to know where
to begin. Marjorie Cook starts with Dinny Nolan.
By MARJORIE COOK - Lifestyle, Magazine | Saturday, 23 October 2010
A D9 earthmover makes its way around Clarke Bluff in the 1950s. — Photo supplied by Tas Smith.
THE ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the Haast Pass road between Central Otago and Westland took place outside Harold and Myrtle Pratt's garage, at the junction of the Jackson Bay and Haast roads, on a sunny day on November 06, 1960.
After more than 30 years of labour, the opening could truly be said to be one of Haast's finest hours.
Five years later, when the link between Haast and Fox Glacier opened, the rain hosed down and a slip closed the road immediately.
But, that's another story.
This story is about Dennis Nolan, who would have loved to see his sister, Nola Cron, share the ribbon-cutting ceremony with then minister of works Hugh Watt.
William Dennis Nolan (Din or Dinny) had died two years before, aged 82. But from the early 1900s to the end of his days, he'd bombarded New Zealand politicians and the Otago Expansion League with letters pleading to start and, later, to finish the Haast road.
We'll probably never know exactly how many letters and telegrams he sent because most of his meticulously carbon-copied correspondence, which he hung on No8 wire hooks in wardrobes and sheds, was burned after his death.
His granddaughter Neroli Nolan, now chairwoman of the Haast road celebration committee, rescued the last hook from a shed many years ago and was astounded to unearth a mine of information.
"He tried every angle to get the road done ... Apparently, he even used to send whitebait to Parliament," Ms Nolan said.
The remains of Dinny's papers include letters from friends and visitors supporting his campaign, as well as responses from officials.
Importantly, they include five pages of a copy of a South Westland history Dinny Nolan sent to a Mr E. Wilson of 299 York Place, Dunedin, dated April 27, 1945.
Neroli is now scanning all the documents, as well as some of Dinny's letters and poetry she has found. Once the collection has been digitised, she will donate the originals to the Hokitika Museum.
Dinny Nolan was born at the Arawata Settlement, near Jackson Bay, in 1877, the fifth of Andrew and Mary Nolan's 10 children. Andrew and Mary (nee Spillane) were among the original settlers in Jackson Bay, arriving on April 12, 1875.
By 1882, the Nolans couldn't live in the bay any more. It was not the land of milk and honey and the beaches were not covered in gold. They moved north to Okuru, where at least they could grow potatoes and catch eels.
The short trip up the coast was not without mishap. The open boat tipped and all the children went into the sea. Dinny later said it was the scariest moment of his life.
Like many Westland children of his generation, Dinny did not have much formal education and taught himself to read, write, type and write poetry.
He was said always to have a dictionary on his knee and some of his many poems were later published by one of his sons, Bill Nolan, in The Droving Days.
Most of the Nolan family had left the inhospitable district behind by 1914, but Dinny was a stayer.
In 1913, he married Mary Ritchie, from Jacobs River, and they had five sons, Bill, Robbie, Eddie, Des and Kevin.
Although Dinny rarely strayed from the West Coast, he was keen for his sons to broaden their horizons, so he sent them to St Kevin's College, Oamaru.
He was a man for hard work. When the boys were at home, they worked all day and spent evenings chopping wood.
He was highly principled and dead against drink.
The story goes that he would arrive at Jackson Bay to supervise a ship unloading and locals would go to great lengths to bribe ship captains to hide the kegs until he had gone home.
He was also an entrepreneur and had great dreams of getting Haast's industry going. He built a sawmill, started a cheese factory to export to the United Kingdom and set up a whitebait cannery.
His business endeavours were initially successful but did not last long because of unreliable and infrequent sea services. Air services commenced in the mid-'30s but these, too, were weather-dependent.
All the time, Dinny was pushing for an access road and in 1930, he and John Cron and Norman Wallis went to Parliament to urge their case.
They extracted a promise from the Labour Party that if Labour got to power, the road would be built.
On July 23, 1936, the Otago Daily Times devoted most of a page to the visit to Haast by a large delegation of officials.
This physically taxing inspection of the route from Pembroke to Haast employed motorcars, horses, shanks' pony, aircraft and boats.
When Labour was elected, an elated Dinny cabled friends and contacts at Lake Hawea.
To the Ewings of Makarora, he telegrammed: "Keep the billy boiling we will see you by car in the near future".
To the Capells of Hawea Flat: "We will be motoring to your door in the near future".
In 1938-1939, work started at both the Haast and Makarora road ends.
However, progress stalled during World War 2 and it took years and screeds more ink and paper from Dinny before it was completed.
In 1945, he wrote to Mr Wilson of York Place, Dunedin " ... strong agitation is afoot by Local Bodies Associations and other organisations endeavouring to persuade the Government to complete this great national highway".
With prescient foresight, he wrote of the great fillip the road would be to South Island tourism and the alleviation of isolation.
He also wrote of the need to control deer numbers in the forest and how a road would introduce more hunters who could help "exterminate this pest, or at least compel them to retire to the extreme fastness of the extensive mountain ranges".
And he sorrowed that Westland was languishing in a semi-stagnant state "all for the want of seventy miles of main highway and including three bridges, awaiting for the turn of mind of some Government with a progressive and colonising policy".
Although he never saw the road open, he lived to see his ambition being realised.
The final "big push" by road crews came in the 1950s, when Dinny was an old but still energetic letter-writer.
His granddaughter Neroli was a small child at the road opening.
"I see these celebrations as a celebration of a whole lot of things. But it is really the celebration of the end of isolation."
"When that road opened, Dad [Robbie Nolan] would take five of us kids and usually a couple of others and we could go to Ettrick and pick strawberries and gorge ourselves on strawberries too. Then we would go for a swim at the Roxburgh baths and have fish and chips at Cromwell and come home again ..."
"How's that for a day's outing? We used to take three sick buckets with us cos we all got sick. It was just a nightmare, that road. It was dusty and bumpy and hot and everyone would shout ‘put the windows up’."
"The reason we went away and back in one day is it wasn't so much of a rigmarole. We could bring back more stuff and wouldn't have to turn the generator off [at home] for several days. And we would often forget things and have to return home five times before we got going," she said.
One of Dinny's poems was a tribute to Bill O'Leary, or Arawata Bill.
“I often think and ponder, you'll pardon me I ken,
But will our rising generation produce such grand old men?”
These are words his family think easily apply to himself.
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/132990/going-west?page=0%2C0
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/132990/going-west?page=0%2C1
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/132990/going-west?page=0%2C2
Kiwithrottlejockey:
From the Otago Daily Times....
The Haast travellers' tales
It is just 148km of road — but everyone who has
travelled between Wanaka and Haast has a story.
By MARJORIE COOK - Lifestyle, Magazine | Saturday, 23 October 2010
Bob Yates pilots a piece of the heavy machinery that built the Haast Road. — Photo supplied by Tas Smith.
IT IS just 148km of road — but everyone who has travelled between Wanaka and Haast has a story.
Greymouth man Les McKenzie's phone began ringing off the hook as soon as word got around that the 50th anniversary of the road's opening was to be celebrated on November 06 this year.
Since then, Mr McKenzie has been helping collate a virtual landslide of memories, photographs, stories and anecdotes from former road workers and West Coast residents about what is now an important part of New Zealand's most famous scenic route, State Highway 6.
"I think we are going to end up with a surplus, the way we are going," Les McKenzie said in an interview with the Otago Daily Times.
"I've been getting phone calls every day. There's a lot of stuff."
Mr McKenzie (74) recently retired from his job as inspector of works at Opus but still works part-time for the privately-owned roading and infrastructure company, which in former times was the state-owned Ministry of Works.
Mr McKenzie has had a long career in road-building and has had a lot to do with the sealing and resealing of the Haast Pass road, as well as maintenance and construction of other West Coast roads.
From 1953 until 1965, Mr McKenzie worked for the Paringa-based Ministry of Works road survey crew responsible for building the coastal route to Haast from Fox Glacier.
After the Haast road opened in 1960, he transferred to Harihari and later to Greymouth.
One of his key tasks for November's reunion has been documenting nearly every culvert, layby, tourist stop and historic site along the route from Haast village to the pass.
It's been a big job and the keenly awaited results of his labours will be displayed at the celebrations.
One of his key helpers with this task has been Haast farmer John Cowan (63), who recalls a happy childhood at Haast making his own fun and improvising games to suit the available resources.
"There used to be a picnic every year and we raced with a spoon and potato. But we had bacon and egg pie. And we had sack races," Mr Cowan said.
Children rarely ventured out of the district, except to go to school by aeroplane or horseback.
Mr Cowan's father, the late Bernard Cowan, was one of several cartage contractors who worked along the isolated Jackson Bay road.
He owned six trucks, which had been brought down by ship, and Mr Cowan joined the family business in 1964, aged 17.
Other earlier truck owners included Harry Fountain, Ted Buchanan, Athol McGeady and Bill Robertson.
Mr Robertson held transport licences in the 1940s.
"There were no cars. No-one had a car so he [Bill Robertson] would take people around in trucks. Uncle Bill sold to Harry Smith and then Dad, who was farming at Okuru since he was 14, took over," Mr Cowan recalled.
As a cartage contractor, Bernard Cowan worked closely with the road crews building the roads, and he had many stories to tell about the characters he encountered.
Mr Cowan recalled stories about road worker Bill Blair, of Reefton, a person determined not to let the lack of a road turn him from his purpose.
"He drove a D8 [bulldozer] from Paringa up to the [Haast] pass because he had to get it there. At Coal Creek, there is still a gap in the trees where he came down."
"And he didn't come down the cattle track. The only reason why he did that was because the boat couldn't get the D8 down. It is in a book written about this. The dozer would have been shagged by the time it got there," Mr Cowan said.
At Glitter Burn Creek, near Thomas Bluff, road-workers could not clear the road quickly enough and locals pitched in to keep them on track.
"Dad said, be under no illusion there was any free lunch ... It was just tough. All the gravel was spread by hand, right up to the latter stages."
"And they only had three yards [of gravel] on trucks. That's 2.5m at the most. They were only single-axle trucks ... And they had a loader and a digger, an RB10. It took nine buckets to put 2.5m on a truck."
Before the road opened, Bernard Cowan would drive out to Cromwell, often taking other people with him, he recalled.
By this time, the Haast river at the Gates of Haast had a Bailey bridge — it had been shipped into Jackson Bay and transported up to the gorge.
However, the river remained unbridged lower down at Pleasant Flat, so vehicles would have to be winched or towed through the fast-flowing river at this point.
The Pleasant Flat bridge was the last piece to be finished and Bernard Cowan took great pleasure in driving over it the day before the bridge was officially opened by Ivy Farmery (nee Cron).
"The river was in flood and the truck was filled with supplies for the celebrations. Dad said, ‘I shall spit in this river. This will be the last time I ever drive through you’," Mr Cowan recalled.
Betty Eggeling also drove the road before it was opened.
Mrs Eggeling (89) denies stories she crawled over the unfinished Pleasant Flat bridge on her hands and knees.
But she admits the fear she felt walking across the unplanked structure.
"I got halfway across there and I froze. They had to come and rescue me. But my sister, she just walked it no problem, high across the water. I didn't really get down on my hands and knees," she said.
Mrs Eggeling and her husband, Charlie, frequently travelled the route, but there was only one time they rode the complete route from Haast to Makarora on horses, she said.
"We were going for a holiday to Dunedin. We left our horses at Makarora. That would have been — oh, I would have had two kids by then, maybe the late 1940s. I can't remember the date exactly," Mrs Eggeling said.
She only once drove the family Land Rover through the Haast River, which she did just before the confluence with the Landsborough River rather than at Pleasant Flat.
"I had got over all right. You could see the Land Rover tipping and bobbing. I was on my own, too, that time," she recalled.
Mrs Eggeling also owned an Austin A40, but kept it garaged at Hokitika to use if she flew up the coast with Air Travel (NZ) Ltd between Haast and Hokitika.
This enterprising airline was founded by former Dunedin pilot Bert Mercer and first flew into Haast on December 18, 1934.
It was New Zealand's first licensed and scheduled passenger service and Captain Mercer also brought in airmail, was the air ambulance, did alpine flight tours and carried freight.
The company was later sold to National Airways Corporation (NAC) and then West Coast Airways.
Mrs Eggeling said the road opening was a "great thing" and motor trips became more frequent.
"When Charlie and I were making the camping ground [in 1954], I used to drive the trucks out and pick up the supplies we needed, the timbers and the windows."
"Charlie and I would go out together and load up and come back," she recalled.
Culverts for many of the creeks were not built for many years and it took at least three hours to drive the Land Rover over the shingle road to Makarora.
Now the road is fully sealed and bridged and the trip to Makarora takes 90 minutes.
Mrs Eggeling last drove her Nissan out 12 months ago but now relies on family and friends for long trips.
______________________________________
50th anniversary Haast Road events
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 05
• 7pm Haast Hall.
• Registrations — get-together.
• Welcome Kerry Eggeling.
• Reminiscences.
• Book launch (Dave Grantham's book on Brian McCarthy).
• Video viewing and photo displays.
• A supper will be served. Drinks (wine and beer) will be available for sale.
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 06
• 11am Jackson Bay road.
• Welcome John Cowan.
• Westland District Mayor Maureen Pugh to give speech.
• Re-enactment of cutting of ribbon by Betty Eggeling and Sonny Yates.
• Lunch and markets at airstrip.
• Viewing cars.
• Dinner 6pm at marquee at Haast Airstrip. Cash bar (beer and wine).
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 07
• Church service, Okuru, 9.30am.
• 11am Plaque unveiling at Arawhata Bridge for Dan Greaney (1900-1972).
Dan Greaney was the Jackson Bay roadman for many years and sole Jackson Bay resident for seven years. He was known for his concern for the environment. Dan is still fondly remembered in the Haast by some of the old roadmen returning for the celebrations. A memorial plaque for Dan Greaney will be unveiled at the Arawhata bridge. Refreshments to follow at Haast Hall.
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/133005/haast-travellers-tales?page=0%2C0
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/133005/haast-travellers-tales?page=0%2C1
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/133005/haast-travellers-tales?page=0%2C2
Kiwithrottlejockey:
From the Otago Daily Times....
New book on Haast due out
By MARJORIE COOK - Lifestyle, Magazine | Saturday, 23 October 2010
Two of the men who built the road to Haast, Don Omelvena (left) and Euan ‘Bing’ Crosbie. — Photo supplied by Tas Smith.
THE 50TH anniversary of the opening of the Haast road will be celebrated on November 05 with the launch of a new book and a DVD of archived images from the 1950s.
When asked to name the one thing that impressed him most while writing a history of the Haast road, Waikanae writer Dave Grantham could not go past the word "isolation".
"The word that comes to mind is isolation, waiting for parts to come in. It wasn't quite so bad once they had aircraft, from 1934 when the plane service started. But, before that, people just died."
"Peritonitis was a big thing, apparently. People would be carted over the Paringa Cattle Track to hospital," he said in an interview.
Mr Grantham, an office manager for a television company, had previously written a family history and his first book came upon him at fairly short notice.
He had been taking the oral history of former road-worker Brian McCarthy (a man in his 80s), of Hokitika, for a couple of years when, in June, Mr McCarthy invited him to write a book.
Mr McCarthy used to work for Cummings, one of three main contractors who worked alongside the Ministry of Works teams.
Cummings blasted three bluffs — Big Bluff, Thomas Bluff and 16 Mile Bluff — while the Douglas and Clarke bluffs were blasted by Contract Cultivation, which also did the road from the pass down to Pleasant Flat.
A third contractor, Commonwealth Construction, blasted Halfway Bluff.
Mr Grantham said he limited his book to a general overview of the road-building period between Haast and Makarora in the 1950s, because not much had been written about that era.
He had been invited to include the section of road between Haast and Paringa, which opened in 1965 and completed the South Island tourist loop, but he felt that would lengthen his project.
Mr Grantham has obtained material from many other sources, including his father-in-law, Jack Chapman (83), who also worked for Cummings, and Tas Smith (71), who worked for his late father Jock Smith's company, Contract Cultivation.
While Mr Grantham has been working on his book, Mr Smith has been busy finalising the DVD of old photos and films.
Mr Smith sold Contract Cultivation to Whitestone several years ago and is now semi-retired on a farm block near Lake Waihola.
His parents, Jock and Clare, were originally from Timaru and founded the company in the 1920s.
Mr Smith joined in 1957 as an 18-year-old Timaru Boys High School leaver and worked on the Haast road.
"It was certainly the last of the pioneering work in the country. Probably the more interesting work that I've done. I've worked on several projects but that one stood out ... There were no cabs, no heaters; we worked seven days a week in rain, snow or hail. On a really bad day, you probably knocked off a bit early but most days it was 10 hours a day. There was little else to do," he recalls.
The men wore oilskins to protect them from the elements.
Once they had got around Clarke Bluff, they were allowed to go hunting, fishing and whitebaiting in their spare time.
Mr Smith took all the coloured slides while the late Ken Nichols, a former Contract Cultivation surveyor and assistant manager, made the films.
Mr Smith attended the opening celebration in 1960, as well as the Paringa opening in 1965, and a function at Makarora in the 1990s to mark the laying of the last piece of tarseal.
"I've been to all those, so I can't miss this one," he said.
A Road Through the Pass: Roadmaking Haast to Makarora, by David Grantham, is available from: Dave Grantham, 12 Nimmo Ave West, Waikanae 5036. Email: haastroad@gmail.com
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/133007/new-book-haast-due-out?page=0%2C0
http://www.odt.co.nz/lifestyle/magazine/133007/new-book-haast-due-out?page=0%2C1
nitpicker1:
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