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Life in Early Poverty Bay

[introduction]

When buying a section of land in Gisborne these days of pampering civilisation, it is merely a question of getting the address from the land agent, starting up a car, and you are deposited at the spot within a few minutes. Fifty-five years ago, however, when Mr. Ezra Smith first landed in Gisborne, land buying was a very different proposition. Mr. Smith applied to the right and proper official whose duty it was to allot sections to would-be residents and was informed: “You'll see the pegs with numbers so and so on them in the manuka away up there,' and he was directed up Gladstone Road. Mr. Smith waded through several inches of mud for nearly a mile and then hunted through manuka as tall as himself for signs of the surveyors. After nearly an hour's search he located one peg with one of the required numbers on it and a further twenty minutes were required before he had learned the definite boundaries of his new home. And to-day Mr. Smith still occupies that same piece of land