CHAPTER II. RETURN TO NEW ZEALAND.
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CHAPTER II
RETURN TO NEW ZEALAND.
In 1853 my father had built a house in Christchurch, and also one at Sumner, and by this time my mother had arrived with the rest of the family, so he sent for us to come back to New Zealand. Uncle Charles drove us into Hobart, where we stayed the night at the hotel near the wharf, the same one at which we had stayed on our arrival three years before. Next day we were put on the brigantine Mumford, Captain Clarke. She was intended to carry passengers, and had a fair-sized saloon, with cabins neatly furnished. The boat carried both first and second class passengers, of whom there were a good many on board, but I do not remember much about the voyage. Nelson was reached after a very fair passage, and I well remember the pilot, Captain Cross, coming to take the ship in, the boat's crew being nearly all Maoris. I remember his addressing them in their own language. It was a fine day with a light sea-breeze that carried us up to the Arrow Rock, and the tide carried us up into the harbour.
We were met by our uncle Alfred, who was engaged in survey work in Nelson. He took us to his house in Washington Valley. After a
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few days a steamer arrived in Nelson, called, I think, the Nelson. It had been bought by Messrs. Fell and Co., merchants in Nelson. It ran only for a short time between the chief ports, and then apparently, as it did not pay, it was sent away. That steamer I believe was the first to visit New Zealand. The chief officer was a Mr. Kennedy, afterwards a well-known captain in the Union Company's service. We were placed on board the steamer which took us to Lyttelton via Wellington. As fellow-passengers there were two boys, Oliver and Edward Wakefield, belonging to the well-known Wakefield family. Oliver afterwards found occupation in Wellington. Edward took up journalism, and was at one time, in the eighties, editor of the "Timaru Herald." He died in London in 1926. Oliver was killed in a tramway accident many years ago.
My father had bought when in London a rural section of land at Sumner, also sections in Lyttelton and Christchurch. Soon after his arrival he built a small house and office in Lyttelton. This he found unsuitable for business, and he built a small cottage in Christchurch on the triangle between High street, Tuam, and Manchester streets. He originally owned nearly all that triangle. On the arrival of my mother in the steamer Fatima, in 1851, he let his house in Christchurch, and settled with his family in Sumner, where he built a good-
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sized house of sods, with a clay floor. This was a fairly comfortable house for the time, but of course all modern conveniences were lacking. The cooking was done in a wood-burning American stove, and it took a good deal of work getting the wood, and cutting it small enough to go into the stove. We had several cows. George and I milked them, and got firewood, a small quantity of which was obtainable on the beach, but the bulk of it was got from the top of Mount Pleasant, at the head of Jollie's gully, where there was a small bush. We had a strong bullock broken in to work in harness, and with this animal we pulled logs out of the bush, and down the spurs, where the Golf Links are now, and threw them over the cliff on to our land at the bottom. The bullock was also used for packing stores from Lyttelton, and for packing the butter we made, when there was more than we could conveniently carry. For some considerable time George and I carried butter once a week to Lyttelton, and returned with meat and groceries. The route generally taken was up the spur, to the crest of the hills looking down into Lyttelton, and then straight down a leading spur into the town. In spite of having to rise some 900 feet, it was much better walking than along the line of the Sumner road. Stretches of road had been made all the way from Lyttelton to Sumner, but no
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rock had been touched. A track on the proposed line had been made several feet wide, where the earth could be picked out with a pick. In all other places rough tracks made by the workmen led up and down either above or below the rocks. This made such tedious walking that everybody took the short cut over Mount Pleasant.
Up to this time the family finances had been very straitened. My father could get but little work, and was living on his capital, which was small and rapidly getting less. Early in 1854 he was appointed Provincial Engineer, and this made a great difference. As the finances improved and the elder children could be spared, we were sent to school. George went for a term; then I was sent as a weekly boarder to the Rev. Cotterill in Lyttelton, and subsequently in Christchurch, leaving finally in 1858. After this George and I were employed under my father on various public works, learning our business as engineers and surveyors. We built a house on my father's land in Christchurch, on the corner facing the plot now occupied by A. J. White's premises. We put up the frame and then battened it and filled it with cob, and afterwards when the cob was dry, weather-boarded the walls. This made a very warm and solid house. It contained two rooms and a small entrance passage on the ground floor, and two rooms up
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above. For many years we lived in this house whenever in town. There was a small stable on the land, which was fenced, the yard being large enough for our horses to move about in. We each had a horse, and my father had two; a shallow well supplied us with water. As owner of the land, my father had the use of the house, and one room set apart for him. We had very happy times in our little house, and when we were in Christchurch had plenty of young men friends who came to spend the evenings with us.
In 1859 and 1860 I was employed surveying in Lyttelton, where I took charge of boring operations to ascertain the depth of the mud in the harbour. I built a triangular frame, with three spars, each about 30 feet in length, the ends being well bolted together. The bottom of the frame was loaded with lumps of iron. A triangular frame with casks bolted on to it was built round it, forming a powerful float, which was attached by ropes to the foot of the main triangle, so that it could be floated from place to place in the harbour. By these means the whole trestle could he raised and floated to each desired spot. Then the boring rods were lowered to ascertain the depth of the mud, which was from 50 to 70 feet deep. This soft mud made bad holding ground, and several small vessels had been wrecked through the
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anchors dragging in the mud. I was also engaged in survey work in connection with roads near Kaiapoi and Rangiora, and after the tunnel was begun, in working on the tunnel and railway work. I put in the levels for the plate-laying from the tunnel mouth to Christchurch.
SUMNER ROAD.
On the election of Mr. FitzGerald to the office of Superintendent, he decided to establish communication between Lyttelton and Christchurch via Evans Pass. My father, as Provincial Engineer, together with Mr. Bray, reported Thomas's line far too expensive a route, and recommended that a short tunnel some fifteen chains in length should be driven under Evans Pass. The old line from Polhill's Bay was to be abandoned for one on a much flatter grade that would reach the Lyttelton end of the tunnel without entailing any heavy rock cutting. On the Sumner side, the line was to be entirely abandoned and a new road made on the east side of the valley, from the proposed tunnel mouth to Sumner.
As a temporary expedient a steep zig-zag, quite workable for wheeled traffic, was made over the pass. This carried all wheeled traffic until the Lyttelton tunnel was completed. The short tunnel under Evans Pass from Lyttelton to Sumner was never carried out, for as soon as
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the proposal of the big tunnel was adopted nothing more was attempted until 1914, when the Government Public Works Department constructed a road from Polhill's Gully to Evans Pass on Thomas's line. This was a very expensive piece of work, but it provided an excellent road to the top of the pass. The whole of the line on the west side of the valley had been abandoned.
In the early days no transport arrangements had been made by the authorities for communication between the port and the plains by land, with the exception of a steep bridle path over the hills into the Heathcote Valley. Goods were being taken in open boats over the Sumner bar into the estuary, but this was very dangerous, and accidents happened. The first attempt to establish a practicable transport by water was made by Mr. George Day, who owned a schooner called The Flirt. He was offered by my father £25 to take a lot of goods to Sumner. Day safely landed the goods, and also examined the channels of the Avon and Heathcote rivers in the Estuary. The Flirt was the first decked craft to cross the bar. Several vessels followed, and one at least got up the river, landing a cargo of bricks at the site of the present Barbadoes street bridge; hence the name of "The Bricks." The Heathcote was a much better river for navigation than the Avon, as a fairsized craft could get up to the Heathcote Ferry,
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and thence be towed up the river to within two miles of the city, just above the present Radley Bridge. A wharf was built there and known for many years as the Christchurch Quay. As trade developed a mosquito fleet of sailing craft, aided by a couple of small steamers, carried all the heavy goods traffic between the Port and the Plains till the opening of the Lyttelton tunnel, after which water carriage rapidly died out.
RANGIORA SWAMP.
In 1850 the rivers Eyre and Cust emptied their waters into a large swamp, about 18,000 acres in area. This had at one time been a forest, but the Waimakariri, by spreading its fan northwards, had blocked the outlet of the Eyre and Cust rivers, and the forest was drowned. The surface was covered by a great mass of vegetation, with creeks winding through it, and a number of ponds of open water at intervals. The Provincial Government decided to ascertain whether it was possible to drain it, and a surveyor, Mr. Marshman, was sent to survey it. By avoiding the streams and pools a man could walk across the swamp with the water up to his knees, the whole surrounding surface shaking for some distance. A line was set out from the banks of the north branch of the Waimakariri (which at that time was a very considerable stream) to the Rangiora forest,
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and pegs were put in at every five chains. It took poles from ten to fifteen feet in length to reach bottom on which they could stand. These poles were put down at every set of the instrument for the legs to stand on, and to avoid our sinking in too far we pulled boards about with us to stand on. This was very slow work, and although the distance was only about three and a half miles, the levelling took over a week. The levels proved that there was plenty of fall to admit of the swamp being drained into the river. In fact the swamp stood fairly high, the water evidently being impounded by the rank vegetation. The waters from the rivers and streams flowing into it were drained out in many places, some running into the Waimakariri, others into the Cam. Main drains were eventually cut through the swamp. The tools used were hay-knives to cut the surface vegetation, saws and axes to cut through the mass of buried timber, and scoops to bail out the mud.
The surface lowered several feet as the water was carried away by the drains, instead of being held up by the swamp. It took many years before the whole swamp was dry, and a great deal of timber was got out of the paddocks before the surface was quite free from projecting logs. The greater part of this area is now valuable arable land. At the time we made the survey for the outfall drains, Rangiora consisted of only a few houses. There was no
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daily mail, the mail cart stopping at Kaiapoi. A carrier with a tip-cart used to take goods to Rangiora from Kaiapoi, and folks with much luggage would make the trip in the cart, which would be filled with a good bed of straw for the occasion. Our party of four, with swags and instruments, took a passage to Kaiapoi. We loaded our luggage into the dray in front of the hotel, and took our seats upon the straw. Unfortunately the driver in climbing up to his seat on the front rail, gave a kick to the lever of the tip-catch, and we all shot out in a heap with the straw, in front of the hotel. Mr. Marshman manfully stuck to the level, so that the instrument should not be hurt, and the incident ended with heated remarks being made by the ejected passengers.
