28 April 1872

After Church, we hired a buggy to drive to Cromwell in order to meet the Coach next day. The roads were simply awful, and were cut up by the wagons and drays into mud the whole way. There are certain alluvial page 100 deposits all the way – water supply, however, is generally the difficulty. Rain came on – we had changed horses at night, and had started afresh, but on finding our road was alongside a precipice on one side for most of the way, and as we lost the road and were all but over, we determined to retrace our steps and remain at “Harding’s”.