Here we halted to have some warm tea, and we now ate all our bread except about two cubic inches, which we kept as a memento of the trip. I also plucked and cooked the wren, grilling him at the end of a stick. He was a tender morsel, but very, very small! At this point there was some debate as to whether we should swim the river to the left bank or proceed down the bank upon which we now were, so, while Fyfe rested, I went exploring, and, at the mouth of the gorge, found an old and rickety footbridge made of fencing wire and saplings suspended high above the water. As Fyfe’s leg grew still worse, I now threw away the blanket out of my sleeping bag, and, to ease his burden, took most of his things in my pack. We crossed the bridge in some trepidation, for it swayed ominously and looked most insecure. On the other side of the river we found another disused track, in places completely overgrown with ferns and scrub. It led us to the river-bank a mile or so farther on, where we came upon the footprints of a man, a horse, and a dog, and we followed these down the valley. Sometimes the tracks were along the shingle beach, at other times they went into the bush. Occasionally we lost them altogether. Then one of us would suddenly come upon them again, and cry out, “Oh, here’s the horse!” while the other would, perhaps, remark, “Here’s the man,” or “Here’s the dog also.” In this manner we made our way down the valley, where there was, as yet, no sign of cultivation, nor of any habitation. The river was now a stately stream, flowing over a broad shingle bed. Indeed, it is the third largest river on all the West Coast, only the Buller and the Haast exceeding it in size.
About eleven o’clock I was overjoyed to see the head and shoulders of a horse appearing above one of the gravel banks in the river bed. We found a small but very intelligent boy in charge, and immediately subjected him to a running fire of questions. He told us he was the son of Alex. Gunn, of the Wataroa Ferry. Now it chanced that I had a letter of introduction from the late Mr. Seddon, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, to Mr. Gunn, so we made haste down to his house, some three and a half miles farther on. We spoke of leaving our swags for the horse to carry, but on second thoughts we decided to finish our contract in style, and left them on our own backs, regretting all the time that we had done so. At 12.30 in the afternoon we walked into what is marked on the map as the township of Rohutu. It consisted of one house!
In the house we found an elderly man with his wife and a large family, the youngest of which was only three months old. In this home we received a most kindly and hospitable welcome, and remained several days in the hope that rest and hot fomentations would heal the wound in Fyfe’s leg. But the leg got no better, and after a time it was decided that I should go south some forty miles to Gillespie’s Beach and return to the Hermitage via Fitzgerald’s Pass, while Fyfe went on to Hokitika, where he had his leg opened up by a doctor, and two or three pieces of bone taken out.
We said farewell on Wednesday, February 24, he going north, and I going south in company with the mailman, on horseback. It was raining heavily when I left the Wataroa Ferry, and I had no overcoat, but Mr. Gunn rigged me out in true West Coast fashion, with one sack tied round my loins and another fastened round my shoulders. Then we started off down the wonderful and historic West Coast, where the climate is as wet and the liquor as fiery as any in the whole wide world. The pack-horse that carried the mails was a particularly obstinate brute, and while I was helping the mailman to drive it along it suddenly lashed out vigorously with its heels and kicked me on the leg. In a few seconds the leg was terribly swollen, and the pain was so acute that I feared the bone had been injured. Luckily, however, the iron shoe had just missed the shin bone, and my leg was to some extent protected by the putties I was wearing. Otherwise it had gone harder still with me. Here was a nice state of affairs—to be laid by the heels in this manner on a level road after all one’s adventures amongst unexplored glaciers, mountains, and rivers! However, I decided to ride on to Okarito, and, for the next few miles of the journey, was able to reflect on the fact that all our original party except my wife were now hors de combat with injured legs. It seemed doubtful if I should now be able to return alone over Fitzgerald’s Pass. An injured leg is not the best of companions on a solitary mountain journey.
After we had proceeded a few miles through the bush we came upon some men who were driving cattle, and, strangely enough, one of these young fellows had just been kicked on the chest by the horse he was riding. Such accidents are among the little troubles that the pioneer has to put up with, and as there is usually no doctor within a hundred miles one simply damns the cause of the injury, applies the ordinary simple remedies—or even a horse embrocation—leaving Nature, with the assistance of plain living, to complete the cure. It is wonderful how many things can be cured by simples and how well you are when the doctor is a hundred miles away!
We arrived at Okarito in the evening in the pouring rain, and for one night we enjoyed the luxury and comfort of an hotel. Here I met quite a character who was locally known as “Billy Barlow.” He had been a “star” in the halls in London many years ago, and could still act Hamlet and sing a good comic song.
On Thursday we made an early start for Gillespie’s. The Main South road from this point was, in places, more imaginary than real, so we kept to the sea-beach. The heavy rain had ceased and the sun shone brightly on the shore, while inland great masses of cumulus cloud piled themselves above the mountain-tops. Our spirits were high, and the horses, too, seemed to revel in the glorious morning as they galloped along the firm, wet sands. The breakers came tumbling shoreward; above us were the cliffs of the sea-beach, covered in places with beautiful ferns and shrubs, through which, at intervals, the silver streak of some waterfall flashed in the sunlight. Beyond, the tall trees rose on a sort of tableland, and the forest stretched away to the foot-hills, above which gleamed the long line of glory of the Southern Alps. Peak after peak I recognized. Here were all our old snowy friends with their backs turned on us, but looking grander than ever in their stateliness of beetling crag and gleaming cone, above the sombre green of their forest setting. In riding along the beach to Gillespie’s the traveller has to study the tides. In places there are bold rocky bluffs that cannot be passed at high water. We were late enough at the last bluff, and Hughie Thompson, the mailman, shook his head dubiously as the foaming breakers came thundering amongst the big rocks. We waited some minutes, anxiously watching, and then made a dash for it, I, who came last, just escaping a big wave that broke as I passed. The pack-horses used in this mail service are, however, wonderfully sagacious animals. On occasions they have been left to their own devices whilst the mailman has taken a safer route along the rocks higher up. At such times they will be seen patiently watching the receding waves till a good opening occurs, when they will dash along to a safe standpoint, there to await another opportunity before dashing on again. Several men, however, have been drowned while rounding these bluffs, and their horses dashed to death on the rocks by the remorseless surf. In other cases the horses have escaped by swimming. The turbulent, unbridged rivers, too, have claimed heavy toll of the daring pioneers.
Gillespie’s Beach is a small mining settlement with one hotel and a few diggers’ huts. I had to wait here for some days, but did not grudge the time, as both my leg and the weather were bad. Eventually I moved on farther south, and stayed in a hut with four miners and an entertaining young Maori named Friday. The hut was on a small cattle ranch owned by an old West Coaster who was then in the Hokitika Hospital. His nephew, Dick Fiddian, a strong, bright, Lancashire lad, was in charge, and, as I was not very sure that my leg would hold out, I engaged him to accompany me part of the way on my return journey to the Hermitage. All the people I met on the way down shook their heads gravely when they learned that I purposed crossing the Alps alone; but I knew if my leg held out for the first two days I should be all right. I was rather pleased than otherwise that the weather continued bad, for the enforced idleness gave my leg a chance to mend. Much bathing with warm water and rubbing with a horse embrocation, a panacea for all outward ailments in these parts, had considerably reduced the swelling.