Chapter 13

The Trek to Parkdale

Bess:
Yes, we did feel it many a time when father was downhearted, so we worked hard
and never wanted very much. However I think we're a very happy lot mostly.


About the Corries, there were six in the family besides the parents, Anny, Tom,
Mark, Kate, Maggie and Fanny. Annie and Tom were older than me I think,
then there was Maggie, she was married and ended up as a grandmother.
Kate was the youngest and still laughed at being an old maid. Fanny was
like the mother who was a dainty little lady.
Sam himself was a big man. What is left of the family lived in the Waitahuna
Township now, not on the farm. Fanny and Mark are dead now.

Fan:
Then there was the place with a pump and trough before we came to the Corries.
It was very frosty that morning also. The pump would did not work well for us and
I'm afraid had we had a very dry wash before running back under the tilt to keep warm.


Nell:
That was my first sight of a pump and I was amazed to see someone pour dirty water
from a hole nearby by into the pump. And almost immediately they came out clean
water for our kettle. I remember seeing that day or the previous one a man frying
chops on what I now believe to be a blacksmith's forge. I think it was a man called
Capstick, probably another carrier.


Fan:
Lawrence, when we passed through it seemed only a town of a few scattered houses.
We reached Evans Flat on a Saturday night and stayed over Sunday. It was a cold,
raw kind of day and if the boy who was minding Mrs Evans's baby had not made a
little fire on the ground to warm, we and the little baby he was minding would have
been miserable. Mother and baby Henry were in with Mrs Evans.

Father, Mary and Bess went to church in the afternoon.

Nell:
We saw a peacock at Evans Flat.

Bess:
Yes, and I thought the singing very beautiful at the church. We stopped at Evans
Flat on Sunday because father never would travel with his team on that day of the
week if he could possibly avoid it.

Fan:
We reach Raes Junction a little after dinner time, and the Bennetts who lived there
boiled the billy for us and we bought some chaff.

Nell:
We saw a range for the first time at Bennetts while at Raes Junction. Miss Bennett
was there with her black curls, the carriers called her the "Black Angel" and she was
a great favourite with them.

Fan:
We walked from Bennetts to the top of the Big Hill. In those days they did not go up
the Devil's Elbow and past Edies. It was dark before we reached the
accommodation house kept by Lomas. Mrs Lomas was a Miss Cotton from Waipori
and father had known them there. We were made very welcome, and Mrs Lomas
would have us woman folk sleep in the house.

Nell:
I remember we walked up the Big Hill.

Fan:
The next day 21st or 22nd of June after seeing the pet lambs at the sheep yards,
we started off to Swift Creek, the names names Parkdale and Heriot were not
used then. On the way down most of us preferred to walk. We passed Sherwood
Forest in a little gully to the right and arrived at Barclays on the left where there
was a hut and stable some men fencing and plowing a little further down.
Someone referred to them as "Sparks" . We called the blacksmith boys "Sparks"
and the carpenters "Chips" for a long time.

Bess:
Yes, that was the two Aitchison boys and a boy Eskvale from Tapanui.
Sam, Archie and Jim. They stood and stared at us newcomers. They and theirs
stood good friends to us for many a day.

Fan:
A few moments after passing them there were shouts of:
"There it is! There it is!" We all ran ahead of the wagon shouting:
"I can see it, that must be the house!"

I remember when we came to the place near Barclays where we looked over the
hill and saw the house. Henry was 2 years 1 month old at the time and always
maintained that he remembered seeing the house from that spot. Bess would no
doubt be carrying him on her hip as was her usual practice, when he was
young until mother had to stop her as she was going lopsided through doing so.

Henry was in the wagon with Mother. It was a lovely winter's day and in the early
morning, and coming down the hill from Dunrobin we had what I consider the the
finest view of Heriot in the district. On the left there was Crookston Flat-lying at the
foot of the beautiful blue mountains, and at that time all covered with natural grasses
and with only a few huts, and a little fencing, and no trace of homesteads.

The gullies of the mountain had the dark green of the native bush, with Tapanui
surrounded with it, and in the distance it was Wooded Hill with it's dark green
crown of native bush with wooded gullies and scattered cabbage trees.

In the immediate foreground there was Flaxy Hill. Leading from the back of this Hill
toward the right of the view was Swift Creek, with its banks green with native flax
making a trip through native swamp grasses to the Pomahaka river with it's low
gravel banks in the distance and beyond that again rolling down stretching as
far as the eye can see to the Hokanui Mountains, 30 miles away.

On the right, and nearer at hand were the ridges stretching away to a place called
Park Hill. We arrived on the site of Parkdale a little after midday but soon there
was a stir and the boiling of the billy and we soon had our first meal at the new
house.

This is a view on the road from Dunrobin to Heriot, looking towards the Blue Mountains:



This is a view on the road from Dunrobin to Heriot, looking towards Heriot,
there is a Kempthorne Road at the bottom of this hill.



Bess:
When father, Alf, Charlie and Wattie Grey first came to Parkdale, Mrs Ritchie across
the road stopped in the middle of her washing, took the boiler off the fire, and put
the kettle on to make tea and welcome the strangers.

Nell:
There was a terrific wind shortly after we went to Swift Creek,. A dray on the hill was
blown over and ended up with it's wheels in the air, bows broken and tilt torn.
Just tussock for miles, and the wind gained great speed and power. Nowadays
the force is broken by the plantations.