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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 6 (October 1, 1928)

Down the Wild Gorge

Down the Wild Gorge.

So, on 15th March, the Dobsons and Goldney rode up the Bealey River bed as far as they could take the horses, and camped. Next day heavy rain kept them in camp. On the 17th they climbed up the pass and crossed to the head of the Otira. There, at the edge of the old moraine, the torrent plunged down about two hundred feet over great rocks into the narrow gorge.

The explorers descended these precipices with much difficulty. In one place they had to make a rough ladder, Maori style, with flax and the kiekie climbing-plant, to get down a vertical cliff face, forty feet high. They had to lower their dog down this precipice with a flax line, and haul him up again getting back. Down in the torrent bed they page 28 waded in many places up to their waists in the icy water as they made their way down the Otira. They went right down the defile to the open river flat—where the Otira railway yards now are—and continued on for some distance towards the Taramakau.