page 5

Editor's Note

Mt Arthur Tableland

Small numbers of gold diggers appear to have sought the precious metal on the Mount Arthur Tableland over quite a period of years. In March 1868 a miner who had been at work there wrote a letter to the Nelson Evening Mail in which he stated that there were about 12 or 14 men then working there, and he complained that the track which was being made by the Government led to country where there was no one at work, while the Lodestone Track, which had been condemned by the Government, was the only one by which the diggers were obtaining their stores, and by which gold was being brought out. He suggested that with a small outlay this track could be 'rendered available'. His comments about the track being made would indicate that he was referring to Jones's Track which led from the Baton Valley to the Leslie River and Karamea Bend. Just when the track by way of Flora Saddle became the usual route is hard to say but the original Dutton's Track to Salisbury Open climbed to a much higher altitude and no doubt avoided a good deal of the bush country.

By 1874 the track by way of the Graham Valley and Flora Saddle must have become the recognised route as in that year John Heath held an hotel licence under the 'Goldfields Accommodation Act' which carried a stipulation that he 'keep track from Heath's house to Flora's Creek clear of slips and fallen timber'. In the same year settlers at Pangatotara petitioned the Nelson Provincial Council for the provision of a cart road up Graham Valley.

In the late 1880s suggestions were being made in Takaka that a track should be opened up from the head of that valley to the Tableland. The area was in the Takaka Riding of the Collingwood County and requests from gold diggers, as well as farmers running stock out there, felt that they should be provided with better access. By 1892 the matter was the cause of some friction as the Waimea County received what little revenue came from the Tableland and yet the Takaka Road Board was expected to improve the access. A request to the Waimea County Council for them to spend the revenue which they received there brought the reply that it would be done 'some time'.

page 6

Denis Brereton, a ranger in the Mt Arthur region of the North-west Nelson Forest Park, is a descendant of pioneers in the Motueka Valley, and is interested in the history of the mountainous region where he lives.

After graduating M.A. with honours he followed a seafaring life as a deck officer and also served in the sailing ship Pamir, later returning to the district he knows so well.

On a sunny summer afternoon I sat on a pile of stones near Richards' Creek on the Tableland while above me two keys were sporting in the sky. To the north-east could be seen the rather grotesque backs of Hoary Head and the Crusader; and eastwards were the dim outlines of the jagged teeth of the Mt Arthur Twins through the trees on the edge of the Leslie Valley.

Close by, in Richards' Creek, were mounds of washings from gold diggings which nature is rapidly covering with alpine vegetation in her ceaseless struggle to keep the soil on our planet. This was all that remained of Richards' works and my seat of stones was all that remained of his hut.

It is now fifty years since I set foot as a child on the Tableland. The diggers had come and gone some thirty years before my existence, with one exception, Edwin Moore, who is still on the Tableland in a lonely grave.