Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/130

 himself, wife and child, decided to go to Akaroa and seek protection from the French settlers there. Before doing so he hid his plough, and all his farm implements in a deep hole in the River Avon near the present Hospital, and, at that time, quite close to the Riccarton Road. Mr. McKinnon did the first ploughing in Canterbury, and grew the first grain and stacked it, but the native rats devoured it all. Having hidden his implements from the Maoris McKinnon now set out in March, 1841, for Akaroa. Taking his four bullocks he drove them loose, and carried a small table on his head. Mrs. McKinnon carried her one-year-old child (now Mrs. Parkinson) on her back. Thus hampered, they reached as far as Lake Forsyth on their first day. To do this they went through Gebbie’s Valley, past what is now Price’s and Birdling’s, a distance over thirty miles with no roads. All Mrs. McKinnon had to sustain her on that day was one potato! At Lake Forsyth they camped for the night in a cave. Thence to Akaroa they went in a whaleboat. The bullocks were driven overland to Akaroa, where they were fattened, and ultimately sold to the shipping. The family stayed in