Tales of Banks Peninsula
No. 13—Piraki
No. 13—Piraki.
Very beautiful is the head of the Piraki Valley. Thick bush spreads out just below the Summit, and here were still to be found, a very few years ago, the wild pigs in considerable numbers. Here also is one of the last haunts of the native pigeon, and the mako makos, tuis, and other birds swarm in thousands. The track winds on the left-hand side of the gully going down, and crosses the first tongue of bush running out on to the tussocked peaks pretty near the summit. In making this road a strange thing occurred. Though the track was cut through the virgin bush, where none had been known to go before, the largest tree at the creek crossing, a large broadleaf was found to have been carved with the letters L, y, A, r The gully was thereupon called after the lady who was then Miss Lucy Aylmer, and it bears her name on the Government maps to this day. The hills on the right hand side of the valley are very steep in places, and there is one great beetling crag that overlooks the valley, out of which springs a marvellous stone steeple, a splinter formed by some convulsion of nature into an exceptional shape. Above this again towers the Devil's Gap, a great double rock, between the pinnacles of which the road to Little River passes. Grey and stern as they are at the summit, near the base these rocks are clad in the loveliest foliage, and wherever a fissure in their sides gives room for a root to penetrate, there is a curtain of emerald leaves. For a long way the beauty of the scene is unmarred by the so-called improvements, and we feel we are really travelling under the shadow of "the forest primeval," but, on a corner being turned, the usual hideous array of trunk-covered ground and bare sticks, which look what they really are—the naked skeletons of burnt trees tortured in the fire—spring up around us.
On reaching the burnt ground, we came to a creek that has had its rocky bed torn into strange shapes by a great slip from the top of the overlooking spurs. Mr Worsley was camped near when the slip came down, and woke and page 331listened to the terrible thunder of the descending rocks, but they spared him, stopping their mad course, however, only a few yards from his tent. It must be remembered that the writer fully recognises the absolute necessity of clearing the bush away, but he cannot help regretting it. The reason that the upper part of the Piraki Valley is certainly more beautiful than any other place on the Peninsula, is that it is so completely in a state of nature—one great mass of varied foliage, "musical with birds." It will go soon, and with it will vanish the wild pigeons, and the majority of the other birds. Messrs Snow and Anson did their very best to save some of the handsomer trees in the valley. A few groves left here and there will, at any rate, remind one in a year or two, of a beauty that will then have passed away for ever. But, to resume. On and on we go down the long valley, the beautiful harbour being full in sight, its sheltered water smooth as a mill pond, while white crests ornament the waves outside. There is a calm beauty in this scene too, different of course from the mighty grandeur of the peaks, and the wondrous variety of the forest tints, but yet of exceeding merit. The centre of the valley is still here and there dotted with scrub, and wherever water has seamed the side of the spurs a line of green bushes marks its course, here and there the picturesque tents and huts of the bush and gress seed cutters relieve the eye, and beyond all, the two long low spurs clasp in a loving shelter that historical sheet of water, on whose beach landed the first white settlers of this island. Crossing numerous small creeks we at last reach the station, which is sheltered from the nor' west by a row of great gum trees. The house is surrounded by a pleasant orchard, which was planted and tended with great care by one of those Carews who were its former proprietors. It is said that when be left he cut down two pear trees, saying that the fruit was so delicious he could not bear to think of strangers eating it. There are convenient buildings all round, and good paddocks for the cattle. The yards and woolshed are some little distance down the flat towards the sea. There are some five page 332thousand acres on the Piraki run, which was at one time the property of the late Mr F. A. Anson, Mr Snow, who was formerly in partnership, having gone to the North.
The great historical interest in Piraki centres in the old whaling settlement that once existed on the beach. From Mr. Anson's house to the sea one cannot make a step to the sea without being reminded of the incidents recorded in Hempleman's famous diary. It will be remembered that it was at that place the brig Bee landed Hempleman and his men to prosecute the whale fishery in the year 1835. There are still thousands of the bones of whales to testify the success of the party. Great heaps of them are all around one, standing at high water mark, and there are more sad memorials also in the mounds that mark the spot where some of these adventurous men, who met their death by drowning, lie buried. On the left hand side, looking seaward, is a rock called Simpson's Rock, where that veteran whaler used to look out for whales and nearly underneath it is the point where the unfortunate steamer Westport received the injuries that eventually caused her total loss. The site of the "Long House," the principal building in the old whaling times, is still visible, and go are the places where the caldrons were fixed, in which the oil was tried out. It was here that Bloody Jack came with his followers to demand the lives of those North Island Maori boys that were working there; the safety of one of whom was purchased by Hempleman and his men by the present of a boat. By the by, we have all heard that Hempleman saved the life of one of these boys by haading him up in a cask, and so hiding him from his enemies; but an altogether new version of this story is now current. It appears it was not one of the boys at all who was headed up in a cask, but a young fellow who came from Wairewa to Piraki, and who, knowing that Bloody Jack and his party were coming to Piraki, kept it a secret from Hempleman When the party did come, and the boy Jacky was killed, and the other lad ransomed for the boat. Hempleman was so angry at not having received warning from this man of danger, page 333that he headed him up in a cask as a punishment, and kept him there for weeks, feeding him through the bung hole. It was only at the intercession of some other Maoris he at last consented to his release; and when the cask was broken open, and he was liberated, he was nearly dead with the frightful stench and the cramped position in which he had been kept so long. Mr. Simpson told me that a Maori girl was also killed here, and that the flesh was distributed, so that it must have been the scene of more than one dark tragedy. It must indeed have been a lonely place in those days, and the brave fellows who lived there showed great courage. The bush then came down to the water's edge, and rude and toilsome was the path leading to the Harbour of Akaroa. Even when they got there, it was a great chance if they could have had any aid, as for many months in the year there were no vessels there, so that it may be said they carried their lives in their hands. Hempleman must not only have been a courageous, but a very politic man, to save his little settlement in safety, when the fierce Natives could have murdered them whenever it suited their will. Many a weary night he must have spent, fearing the worst, and he certainly had a just claim on the Government for a good grant of land after surmounting so many perils His first claim was, I believe, the whole of the Piraki Valley, bounded by the crest of the two spurs and the summit of the main range; but, as we know, he afterwards grew more ambitious and claimed a huge slice of the Peninsula. Simpson tells me that the men had very hard times when they first landed at Piraki. Hempleman brought some boards for his house, but the others had to sleep in casks for some time, and afterwards they put up such very temporary erections, being entirely unused to whare building, that they had to be stayed by lines, which had to be shifted when the wind changed, so that they should not be blown over. Hempleman's first wife was buried there, but I do not know the exact spot; in fact, the sand has drifted in patches over what seems to have been the principal part of the settlement, which was not far page 334above high water mark. One large mound is said to denote the grave of a Maori chief, but Piraki has never been a great Maori burying place. In the adjoining bay, on Mr. Buchanan's property, known as Tumbledown Bay, there are great numbers of human bones, which are sometimes laid bare by the action of the sea, and then again covered by the friendly sand Piraki beach is a beautiful smooth and sandy one, without rocks, and shelving so gradually that we had to walk out a very long distance at low water before we could get far enough to bathe. The bay abounds with fish, and Mr. Thomas Brough and others often used to go there to catch moki, kawhaia, and butter and crayfish with which latter the rocky ledges absolutely swarm.