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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]

Communication

Communication.

A Bush Creek. Photo by Dr. De Lautour.

A Bush Creek. Photo by Dr. De Lautour.

In the original scheme of the Otago settlement it was arranged that one-fourth of the £2 per acre paid for land was to be expended in surveys and roads. In no part of the colony was such expenditure more urgently required. The site of Dunedin and its immediate surroundings were hidden under an unbroken expanse of forest. To blaze a track a mile in length through the tangled undergrowth, took even a good bushman eight hours' hard work. So great were the difficulties to be encountered that no one need wonder at the hesitation of the pioneers, who for some years feared to undertake the work of road-making on anything like a large scale. In 1851, when Mr. E. J. Wakefield visited Dunedin three years after its settlement, he found that there was still no coast road along the harbour from the capital to Port Chalmers. Mr. Wakefield, supporting Mr. Macandrew, urged strongly that this work should be at once undertaken. But a preliminary estimate fixed the cost at £600 per mile, or over £500 in all; and the infant settlement could not afford the outlay. At the same time, the necessity for opening up the interior was daily becoming more apparent. The condition of the primitive tracks can be imagined by those who have been compelled to try the so-called “roads” in the wildest parts of the North Island. In 1850 it took three days to drag a plough from Dunedin to Waihola. There page 14 was no regular mail between Waikouaiti and Dunedin till 1857, and the “old mountain track” was so bad that it took a mounted postman a full day to traverse it. Within the city limits, things were little better; Mr. Donald Reid tells how it took three teams of bullocks to draw a dray with eight bags of wheat from a point opposite the bank of New South Wales to the old mill at Woodhaugh. Where the tracks were broad enough, bullocks and sledges at first did all the draughtwork required. Bullock drays were a later introduction. It was not till 1858 that horses and carts made their appearance in the streets of Dunedin. In 1858 a great sensation was created at the port when an old English stage coach was landed, and put on the road as a mail coach running as far as the Clutha. One of the first wheeled vehicles seen in the country settlement was taken to the Tokomairiro district in 1853, and the journey from Dunedin actually occupied nine days. After the New Zealand Constitution Act was passed, the Provincial Government set itself to remedy as well as it could the deficiencies in means of communication, and the Roads Ordinance passed in 1856 resulted in the expenditure of a large amount of labour and money in the up-country districts. The gold discoveries of 1861 and the subsequent years made it even more essential to the prosperity of the province that the country should be opened up. The physical formation of Otago and Southland, and the occurrence of deep and rapid rivers liable to sudden floods, rendered roads and bridges a most expensive necessity. Still in the old coaching days a great deal of traffic was carried on, especially in the goldfields districts, with astonishingly little delay or accident. The Public Works Policy inaugurated by Sir Julius Vogel in 1870, did a great deal for Otago; but the natural difficulties of the country made it impossible for Otago ever to compete in the matter of internal communication with the neighbouring province of Canterbury. In 1872 the railway between Port Chalmers and Dunedin was first opened; though the Lyttelton-Christchurch line, which presented enormous natural obstacles, had been open since 1867. The main trunk railway between Christchurch and Dunedin, was officially opened in 1878; and in June, 1879, Mr. Vincent Pyke turned the first sod of the Otago Central line. The opening of the Dunedin-Invercargill line in January, 1879, completed the chain of communication that links together the two extremities of the South Island.

The principal railway lines are (1) Dunedin-Christchurch, 230 miles, of which about 138 miles lie north of the Waitaki in Canterbury. From this main line several branches diverge: Oamaru to Hakataramea, forty-three miles, Oamaru to Ngapara and Tokarahi, twenty-five miles, Palmerston to Dunback, nine miles. (2) Dunedin-Invercargill, 139 miles, with branches—Mosgiel to Outram, nine miles; Milton to Lawrence, twenty-four miles, Stirling to Kaitangata, five miles, Balclutha to Owaka, eighteen miles, Waipahi to Heriot, twenty miles. (3) Otago Central from Wingatui to Ida Valley, ninety-eight miles.

Shotover Bridge, Arthur's Point.Photo by Rev. W. A. Gunn.

Shotover Bridge, Arthur's Point.Photo by Rev. W. A. Gunn.

From various points on these lines, minor lines and roads diverge in such a way as to connect closely all the towns and districts in the province. From Kurow, the terminus of the branch line from Oamaru, the road runs along the course of the Waitaki to a point beyond the Rugged Ridges, then crosses the Ahuriri Pass, and so up Longslip Creek to the Lindis Saddle, 172 miles from Dunedin. Here begins the descent into the Clutha valley, by way of Morven bills. The road runs up the Clutha valley through settled farming country to Pembroke on Lake Wanaka. It is 223 miles by this route from Dunedin. Another way of getting to the heart of Central Otago is by the Clutha valley. Two miles beyond Milton on the Tokomairiro plain, a branch line starts from Clarkville Junction and runs up as far as Lawrence, sixty miles from Dunedin. From this famous gold-mining centre, a coach road runs to Beaumont on the Clutha, then up along the course of the river, past well-known dredging ground, to Roxburgh; ninety-six miles from Dunedin. The road re-crosses the Clutha to the left bank, and passing Alexandra and Clyde (the Dunstan) reaches the junction of the Kawarau with the Clutha at Cromwell. From this point the road divides, one branch leading up the Clutha to Newcastle and Pembroke on Lake Wanaka, the other passing through the Kawarau Gorge up to Queenstown on Lake Wakatipu. In the south of Otago, the Catlins-Waikawa road has helped the Owaka-Balclutha line to open up the Tautuku bush district, in which a large amount of land is being eagerly taken up by settlers.

Peculiar importance attaches to the Otago Central railway, as it has been the subject of heated controversy, and the funds for its construction have been obtained at various times only after page 15 bitter struggles with the promoters of rival provincial undertakings. Whatever may be thought of the Otago Central in Auckland or Canterbury, Otago understands its importance and has long since proved her determination to sacrifice many another public interest rather than fail in the great work of opening up the central districts of the province, and bringing them within easy range of the coast and the capital. The railway starts from Wingatui junction, eight miles from Dunedin, crosses the Taieri plain, and then follows the winding course of the Taieri river. After crossing the Sutton stream the line enters the level expanse of the Strath-Taieri, passes the Blair-Taieri village settlement, and Middlemarch—forty-eight miles from Dunedin—and so on to Hyde, sixty-four miles. Thence it advances, by way of Middleburn, to Ida valley, its present terminus, ninety-eight miles. The extension to the Maniototo plain is now easy, and it does not seem that there is any special difficulty involved in the formation of the line, as far as Clyde, 130 miles from Dunedin. It is altogether a great undertaking; and its completion is in every way essential to the ultimate prosperous development of the province.

The case for the Otago Central is graphically expressed in the various circulars that have been issued at times by the Central Railway League. One important reason urged for the prosecution of this work is the fact that an area of 3,500,000 acres of land available for settlement will be opened up within fifteen miles of the line. Over a large portion of Central Otago carriage freights are absolutely prohibitive; yet here many settlers took up land years ago, induced by the promise that the line would speedily be laid, and here they are still, isolated from the coast and unable to reach their natural markets. The first sod of the Otago Central railway was turned by Mr. Vincent Pyke so long ago as June, 1879; and in the intervening twenty-three years only 100 miles of the line have been finished; less than five miles a year. Yet Central Otago includes large areas of valuable agricultural land; and it has been pronounced by Signor Bragato, the Government viticulturist, and Mr. Blackmore, the Government pomologist, to be specially adapted for cultivating and preserving fruit. The mineral wealth of Central Otago needs no advertisement; and, in fact, all that the country requires to develop its great natural resources is an influx of settlers, who would assuredly follow the railway. The necessary increase of traffic and export would of course be a great gain to Dunedin, which is the natural outlet of the whole district; but the promoters of the line hold that great ultimate benefits would accrue to the colony as a whole, through the exploitation of mineral and agricultural wealth, and the facilitation of the already extensive and lucrative tourist traffic. Hitherto the portion of the line opened has paid even better than was anticipated; and though the prophecy of an extension over the Haast Saddle to Westland in the distant future sounds rather visionary, yet most Otagans are disposed to agree that “no great development or settlement of Central Otago is possible without the previous construction of the Central railway.”

G. M. Barr, Engineer.Bridge on Dansey Pass, Maerewhenua. (Constructed principally of old rails.)

G. M. Barr, Engineer.
Bridge on Dansey Pass, Maerewhenua. (Constructed principally of old rails.)

The Public Works Statement for 1902 affords some interesting information as to the extension of the railway system in Otago. In 1901, £103,273 was expended on the Otago Central line; in 1902 a vote of £100,000 was proposed. Considerable progress had been made with the heavy tunnel work in the Poolburn Gorge beyond the Ida valley; and the cylinders for the bridge over the Manuherikia were being sunk. Work on the Heriot extension and the Catlins river-Seaward bush lines, was progressing rapidly. The total votes for Otago and Southland railways for the year 1902— £139,000—gave evidence of progressive internal development in these districts.

In addition to these lines, there are several extensions already projected which should ultimately prove of great importance to the colony. When the Otago Central finally reaches Clyde, it is proposed to extend it north to Gladstone or Lake Hawea. The line to Lawrence will be continued to Dunkeld, and thence, in all probability, to Rox-burgh, which will be connected by another line with the Heriot extension from Clinton and Gore. The Catlins river line is expected to open up all the country a little way back from the coast, from Glenomaru and Owaka to Waimahaka and Glenham. Apparently there is enough work in these projected lines to account for the public works votes for Otago and Southland for many years to come.