page 20

The Explorer's Long Adventure: Eighty Weeks in the Wilds.

It was in the early part of December, 1846, that Thomas Brunner left Nelson, with a party of four Maoris—two men and their wives—to explore the Buller River downward to the coast and to seek a pass across the Southern Alps to the eastern plains.

It was the middle of June, 1848, before he saw civilisation again. For eighty weeks he was in the vast forest wilderness of the West Coast, enduring privations which seem almost incredible to-day, living exactly as the Maoris lived, scouring the bush, the rivers, the coast, for wild foods—for the small supply he and his companions carried on their backs was soon exhausted. The hardships, the dangers, the frequent narrow escapes from drowning, the sickness caused by the hard fare of the forest, the eternal rain, the snow-storms, make the story of the long journey a wonderful record of dogged endurance, of suffering and of determination to carry on in spite of all obstacles. The Buller was explored, so were many other parts of the Coast, and the famous coal seam on the Grey River was discovered. When the story of Brunner's great feat was published, the Royal Geographical Society awarded him the medal for exploration. His material rewards were very small. Performances of far less moment, journeys done under quite luxurious circumstances by travellers of to-day, make a great deal more noise in the world and win much profit and limelight glory. It was different in Brunner's day.

But the memory of his heroic endeavour remains as a splendid chapter in our national story. The name of Brunner has high mana on the maps. The Brunnerton coal region, on the Grey, and Lake Brunner, which we skirt on the Otira railway route, preserve his name.