Forest Vale of Whanga-momona.

Of a different character of beauty was the Whanga-momona forest basin in which we found ourselves two days later, two days’ march

In The Heart Of The Taranaki Bush Country.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
The Tangarakau Gorge, on the route of the Stratford Main Trunk Railway.

nearer Stratford, and the land of square meals. We had crossed two steep ranges, and passed through the only break in the great forest—a deserted Maori clearing called Tahoraparoa (it is shortened to Tahora to-day), covered with a jungle of koromiko; there was an old earthwork there, a pa of refuge for some tribe long ago. The faint trail petered out about here, and Julian had to cast about for the way out of the trackless place.

We descended into the alluvial valley which, under its dense bush, bore promise of fertility for the settler who was to come some day. Whanga-momona means “Fat Valley,” or “Valley of Rich Soil,” and it has justified its name. On our first day across its levels we made ten miles—a mile an hour average. We moved in a land of twilight; the sun seldom penetrated the green ceiling of branch and leaf and the feathery tapestries of ponga and koran fern-trees. Puhi told us of the olden rat-hunting and birding expeditions to this now silent place; how the Maori rat, a cleanly animal that fattened on fallen berries, was caught in hundreds in the traps called “tawhiti”; how the pigeon and tui and kaka swarmed so thickly in the season of bush fruits, that their song in the mornings all but drowned the voices of the camping parties. But the bush was almost bare of birds that day; at any rate they were not feeding on our trail.

By this time we were short of tucker, and a wet day's compulsory stay in quickly run-up fern-tree shelter, ran the commissariat supply still lower. A pigeon and a couple of eels gave us a taste all round. Dark was coming on when a loud “coo-ey” rang through the bush, and in another few minutes we were greeting some thoughtful fellows from Stratford who had come out to meet us, with horses as far as they could take them to the head of the track.

We dined well that night, and next morning saw us on horseback, a glorious relief from the eternal foot-slog, jogging down over the Pohokura saddle for Stratford, thirty miles away, and page 28 grand old Egmont poking his shining crown over the leagues of forest and plains to say “Nau mai ki Taranaki!”

Well, that was thirty-six years ago. All the old hands are gone; “Wirihana” and Cadman, Surveyor Munro Wilson, and the rest of them have carried their last pikaus, crossed the last range. Nearly all; out of the eight pakehas, Julian and myself are left; I haven't heard of faithful swagman Puhi for many a year, but I hope he is still above ground.

“Wirihana” predicted, as we climbed the steep papa ridges between the various valleys, that the railway builders of the future would find the job a slow one, because of the numerous long tunnels required. He was right; but the back of the job has been broken, and before long we shall see the triumphant finish of the line for which Auckland and Taranaki fought so strenuously with voice and pen in the young ‘Nineties.

I hope I'll be there when the first locomotive from Stratford comes into Okahukura station, and if old-timers Julian and Puhi chance by any joyful coincidence to be around, we'll certainly celebrate Forty Years After with a pannikin or two of “King Country ginger ale.”

The Mangaone Construction Camp on the New Railway.
(Rly. Publicity photo.)
This camp is situated about fifty-two miles from Stratford, the section of line illustrated being now linked up with the main railway system from Tahora.