Fording the Waitaki in 1884
page 113
The Waitaki is up!" was the news we received in Oamaru. This river had to be
crossed on our journey northward into the province of Canterbury. Word came that
it was barely fordable, a hot wind having melted the snows on the Ranges, and
swollen the mountain torrents. This river is 120 miles long, and has its source
in the Southern Alps, not far from Mount Cook, 13,000 feet high, and the monarch
of New Zealand mountains. The Waitaki is the boundary-line between Scotch Otago
and English Canterbury, so that "Both sides of the Waitaki " may come to be as
suggestive a phrase as " Baith sides o' the Tweed."
A drive of fourteen miles brought us to the river, where we waited three hours,
watching through a glass one or two houses on the opposite shore, about a mile
off. At length a boat approached. The head ferryman, who was trying to discover
a ford for the coach, came slowly across on horseback. He was a Norwegian named
Muller—a big-built giant of a man, with a long red beard, flannel shirt, and
tweed trousers. By his orders the luggage was taken out of the coach and put
into the boat. Then, after my father, my mother, and my two sisters had taken
their places, they were safely rowed across.
The coach was not equally fortunate. Our driver, though sustained greatly by a
dram he had taken at a cottage, was in great terror of the water, a brother of
his having not long before been drowned whilst crossing an Otago river. Had it
not been that my cousin and I went on the box as company, he would assuredly
have thrown up the reins. It was certainly far from pleasant to see the grey
current rolling past us at six knots an hour, and know that next minute we were
to trust ourselves to its uncertain depths. The Norwegian was mounted on a
bare-backed white horse, so as to be ready any moment for a swim. Gideon cracked
his whip, and we splashed in, the rear being brought up by Robert and James on
the saddle-horses. The coach gave a severe pitch, and a substantial wave came
over the box-seat. The two on horseback had a bad time of it. James, who rode a
black pony, was every moment expecting to be carried away; but he got at last
under the lee of the large horse, and felt safer. Muller tied a rope to the
leading horses, to guide us round some awkward places—a proceeding which kept us
continually on the alert; for once or twice he turned us sharply on the " lock"
of the coach, and we felt the vehicle lifting for an overturn in the river.
Another shingle-spit was gained, and Miller again peered about for a ford, but
the bottom was lost a few feet from the edge. We drove in at random, the
Norwegian keeping close alongside our leading horses. All at once his white
horse sank to the belly, and in a second the coach had crashed down into the
deep water. We had gone but a few yards farther when Miller suddenly threw up
the leading-rope into the air, flung his hand back warningly, and sank with an
ominous plunge, almost at our feet into an unknown depth of water. Horse and
rider were swept before our terrified gaze away down the river. Clutching the
bridle firmly in his left hand, the ferryman made a lunge with his right, caught
the mane and held grimly on, while the horse swam strongly and brought him at
last to a small point of land. The coach had been arrested on the brink of a
hidden terrace. We trembled for the slightest movement of the horses ; but
luckily they stood like statues despite the water surging up violently against
their sides. Miller made his appearance again, all dripping but hopeful, and got
us out of our predicament by a sharp turn of the coach—telling us afterwards, in
proof of the shifting nature of the channel, that he had crossed easily at this
very place only the day before. When we arrived on the shore we found an hour
had been occupied in fording, an experience that cost us thirty shillings. The
Norwegian told us he had been ten years at this, had been swept off that same
old white horse many and many a time, and had frequently to swim for his life.
We would advise no one with weak nerves to ford a swollen river in New Zealand.
A few days after, a number of passengers were fording this same Waitaki, when
their coach upset and a " female magician " was drowned. We afterwards saw in
the Christchurch cemetery, many graves of persons who had perished while
crossing rivers. The inscriptions, which came home to us in all their force,
included such texts as " A horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man."
Cobb's Coach! page 115
THIS adventure was succeeded by a journey of twelve miles through pastoral
country. There are some large " runs " in this neighbourhood.
A story is told of a squatter who, in a towering
passion, ordered one of his men to leave—"Away off at once ! " cried he;
"get off my run this minute!" " What!" exclaimed the object of his wrath,
calmly pulling out his watch, —this minute ! Why, I couldn't do it if I were
to rush at a break-neck pace for three hours on end !" We reached Waimate,
our first experience of a Canterbury township—a collection of neat cottages,
painted a light salmon-colour. Next day we travelled to Timaru, where we said
good-bye to our genial driver Gideon. It subsequently transpired that he made
"something handsome " out of his return journey to Dunedin, as he picked up a
batch of Chinamen on the road and brought them into town—or rather to the
outskirts; for, as he said, " I wasn't a-going to be seen drivin' home with a
lot o' Chinese diggers!"
We prosecuted our journey to Christchurch by " Cobb's coach." Inside the vehicle
was a young lady barnacled over with bundles. The other passenger was an elderly
gentleman with a red face and grey moustache—to all appearance a Crimean
officer—who was called " the Doctor " by everybody we met. A few miles out we
came to a public-house. The driver handed the reins to the farmer, then slowly
toiled into the bar. Three minutes elapsed. Out he came, wiping his mouth with
the back of his hand. " What'll you have, Jack ? " said he to a man on the box "
Oh, I don't know—I'll try a shandigaff." The Crimean gentleman emerged from the
coach. " And what'll you take, Doctor ? " "Oh, a sherry 'll do me, thank you."
After a while the driver and the doctor, followed by a foul-speeched swagman,
returned from the bar. The driver goutily ascended to the box, rheumatically
took the reins, serenely rilled his pipe, nodded in a careless way to a friend
at the door, and commenced an enthralling stable conversation. The military
doctor crawled into the coach, and the swagman, uttering threats at some one in
the public-house, reeled out, pitched his blankets inside the coach, and took
his seat beside them. The mail slowly jogged off once more. We passed by
plantations of gum trees, rows of bright yellow stacks, corn fields hedged with
gorse, green meadows, and a wide level plain far beyond—the grey road extending
away ahead, till the unclouded sky came down like a bright blue blade, and
severed it at the horizon. In time we reached Temuka, where the same drinking
programme was gone through.
Drinking here is fostered by the appearance and number of the " hotels." "
Hotel" sounds more respectable than " public- house." The bars are .opener, more
numerous, and less clandestine-looking than at home. Colonial Bill, when he
beckons his chum Tom to have a " nobbier" over the way, is only increasing his
long-established fame for good-fellowship. The digger, when he leaves his lonely
gully and comes down to civilisation, has a " blow-out" with his friends—so has
the shepherd when he pockets his cheque for some months' work, and leaves for a
while the solitude of a sheep-station. No company of average men assembles, but
some one " shouts " or " stands " drinks all round. Mr. Black meets Mr. White,
whom he has not seen for a whole week, and the consequence 'is a couple of "
drinks." Jones has something particular to say to Robinson about the
weather—they step " across the road." Smith settles an account with Brown, and
"two nips of brandy " are immediately called for. "Nobblers" act as the
receipt-stamps of business. It is but fair, however, to state that there is a
considerable absence of staggering drunkenness. There is more of what we might
call casual conviviality, but it cannot be said there is more intemperance in
the colonies than in the mother-country.
A "Dog Watch." page 117
We stayed two days at Temuka and then caught the next coach, which left at eight
in the morning. The track lay through a continuous sea of grass. Some passengers
in the front part of the coach became extraordinarily happy, taking at frequent
intervals a bottle out of a black bag. The jolly company established a
"dog-watch," which meant that every dog met in with was to be the signal for a
drink all round. The first seen was a boundary-dog chained to a break in a fence
to prevent sheep straying from one run to another. It was a fierce, leaping,
howling brute, with teeth like tusks and brown matted hair that flapped in long
ragged strips over its back and over its eyes. It was fastened to a wooden
kennel, and within the radius of its tether were red fleshy bones of sheep, a
skull and half-crunched ribs, which the dog dragged rattling around with its
chain as it wheeled and bounded furiously at the coach. Poor boundary-dogs, what
a life they lead —no society, nothing but an occasional coach to remind them of
the outside world. They are said even to bark at a passing shower by way of
variety!
In the middle of the plains we drew up alongside a post on which was nailed what
looked like a small writing-desk. The driver leant out, lifted the lid, took out
a small leather bag and drove off'. It was a bush post-office—a very private
letter-box belonging to some sheep-station. Then the horses as if by mutual
consent, took it into their heads to "bolt." With vigorous gallop they careered
along the plain. The team was guided off the road, and the frantic animals swept
round in an immense circle on the plain. All fear and anxiety gave place at last
to curiosity. " How long would they keep it up ?" For nearly a quarter of an
hour they dragged the coach round and round ; but at the end of that time they
sobered down to a smart trot, and all steaming and sweating, they were headed
back to the road. A passenger was picked up—an open-faced young Irishman. " Ach!
this country is no good," said he, " the best of the land's all taken up, and
you can't get work when you want it—and little enough wages, too." Cross-
examining him, we learned that he had been five weeks at harvesting and was £25
in pocket. " Troth, that's a fact," said he; "I cleared five pounds a week. You
see I'm one of those chaps that's always grumbling, and don't know when they're
well off." Leaving Ashburton, where we had dinner, we passed paddocks of green
grass, marshalled round in military fashion with sentinel poplars, outside of
which bristled like bayonets the fixed blades of the flax. Eighteen miles of
dull plains, a thirty miles' night-ride on a railway, and we sighted the
street-lamps of Christchurch.
David Kennedy By Marjory Kennedy Fraser, David Kennedy, 1887
