Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/111



N the early days of the West Coast, Westport was approachable only by sea. True, a number of diggers managed to make their way overland, mostly along the beach, from Greymouth, but the usual route was by steamer, either from north or south, to the Buller River. Nowadays, the traveller can reach Westport by mail coach from Nelson, as well as by similar means from the southern towns on the coast viâ Reefton. In this chapter I will ask my readers to accompany me on a trip by the old means of conveyance, by steamer, from Greymouth to Westport.

Sixty miles or thereabout of a journey north of the Grey, the voyager will reach the Buller River, Kawatiri in native nomenclature. He will notice, if the weather is clear, that past the Grey River the character of the country rapidly changes; the outline becomes more bold, and the Paparoha Mountains, running almost parallel with the coastline, rise in rugged contour, showing high serrated peaks, with the rounded forms of granitic mountains in the foreground. As he coasts along, he may, by dint of good eyesight and clear binocular, catch sight of the little settlement of Brighton on the Fox River, and of Charleston Bay. As seen from the seaward, a patch of white dwellings on a clear upland terrace with forest-clad ranges in the rear and lofty snow-capped mountains in the distance. If perchance there is an old goldfield wayfarer aboard he may hear a yarn, oft told and losing nothing in variety by its repetition, how men in the early days of the coast, when the first tidings of gold at the Buller were rumoured, travelled overland from Canterbury to the Grey, in itself a perilous feat, and thence, nothing daunted, made their way along the coast, crossing the dread Razorback, forcing their path, by mountain, stream, and trackless forest, some dying by the way, others turning back appalled, all enduring privations which men, in these days of easy locomotion, little reck of, and he may listen to the tale with half wondering disbelief. It is true though that the West Coast exploration was fraught with much peril to life and limb, much long enduring privation and hardship.

Mr Reuben Waite, to whom I referred in a previous chapter as one of the pioneers of this district, thus relates an incident of the early difficulties to be contended with:—

“On one trip, indeed, the ‘Gipsy’ was away thirteen weeks. We entered every harbour in Blind Bay, Port Hardy three times, and West Wanganui twice (driven by stress of weather). Off Rocky Point a sou’-wester met us, and nearing the Mohikinui we were becalmed two days. These were trying times, when the vessel, full of provisions, was in sight of two or three hundred diggers almost starving, and yet we could not reach them.