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Journal of the Nelson and Marlborough Historical Societies, Volume 1, Issue 4, October 1984

Bridges

page 53

Bridges

We tend to think of modern bridges with at least two lanes and on an angle that can be negotiated at eighty kilometres an hour. The first ones were very different. One of the most primitive ones is described by J. H. Lyons: "As a youth I was shown a cliff at least eighty feet high at a place called Maruia, and was told that some adventurous spirits swam the Buller River and from the bush plaited two cables of the karewa or, as we call it the supplejack vine. These they attached at intervals so that one hung a few feet above the other, and on this precarious bridge crossed with their swags, using one as a foothold and leaning across the top one, for several hundred feet, stepping sideways and rising to the incline of the cliffs. But gold was there and they paid for their provisions in unminted gold."

— from Faring South" by J. H. Lyons.

Early bridges were very simply constructed: a tree was felled close to the stream to be crossed and its trunk became the bridge. The photograph shows one of the log bridges, the photographer and the date are unknown, it was probably taken before 1890. The caption on the original reads: "Through the narrow rocky opening in the widest part only 12 feet across, the whole of the Matakitaki River at this point passes surging and bubbling during fair weather, but in floodtime the rocks are submerged and the rough log bridge here represented is swept away and another has to be substituted by the adventurous miners ere they can cross to the opposite bank." At least one tragedy took place here. The river was rising, it was late and the anxious wife sent her son with a lantern to guide his father over the bridge. While he was crossing the bridge was swept away and he was lost in the flood.

Many of the first bridges built were known as "horse bridges". They were along the pack tracks and were used by riders and pack teams but were not wide enough for wheeled traffic; such was the first bridge at the outlet of Lake Rotoroa, built in 1866. All sorts of bridges preceded the modern ones, the bridge with no sides — and a narrow one at that, the ones with loose timbers that made a clatter as one crossed, as one man remarked, "Mother doesn't like these bridges that laugh at you," the ones that were built at an awkward angle to take advantage of a shorter crossing. Are we thankful as we speed along our modern highways for the bridges of today?

Horse Bridge at Lake Rotoroa, built 1866.– From an old photograph. Drawing by W. E. Brooks.

Horse Bridge at Lake Rotoroa, built 1866.
– From an old photograph. Drawing by W. E. Brooks.