A Ford on the Takaka River

Unbridged rivers were a constant hazard in the early days of settlement, with drowning becoming known as 'the New Zealand death'. The Nelson Provincial Council voted £25 to provide a ferry at Thomas Windle's, above the confluence of the Takaka and Waingaro Rivers, in 1861, but nothing seems to have come of it. ¹¹ Dixon's neighbour, James Kealy, whose property also fronted the Waingaro, made his canoe available, but drowned in 1864 when it overturned in the Takaka River. Dixon and Bromiley then found themselves acting as unofficial ferrymen and later that year requested that official ferries be established at both crossings, for which they would be paid a fee. ¹²

It was possibly the drowning of 'a much respected settler', Mrs Kealy, the widow of James, in November 1866 which finally brought action, especially as two daughters were left orphaned. She had been crossing the Waingaro on horseback and it was concluded that she had been thrown and stunned when she fell on boulders. The river was feared for its swiftness and the rocky nature of its bed and was described by the Nelson Examiner as 'extremely rapid and dangerous to cross at this place'. ¹³

John Blackett, the Provincial Engineer, was asked to 'examine a line of road which would avoid the crossing of the dangerous ford on the Waingaro River, by diverging from the West Takaka road just above that river, through Messrs Dixon and Bromley's (sic) land, crossing the Takaka at an excellent shallow, permanent ford'. ¹⁴ Blackett commented that it would 'render travelling in the district much more certain and safe during freshes than by the present road'. The line was gazetted on 21 November 1867. In his annual report, dated 13 April 1868, Blackett said that landowners had given their permission for the new road and the crossing was 'an excellent and unchanging ford, and saves the travellers the danger of crossing the dreaded Waingaro'. ¹⁵

Horse-drawn wagon load of sawn timber on the first bridge at Paynes Ford, looking towards the west bank of the Takaka River. Tyree Studio Collection, Nelson Provincial Museum, 181986/