Roads, Tracks, &c.

Situate on the coast, fifty miles north of Westport, is the Karamea Special Settlement, principally settled from the Nelson and Motueka Valley districts. This part of the district contains some excellent but heavily-timbered land, and is reached from Westport by a good road, connecting with the Westport-Ngakawau Railway at the Mokihinui River. A bridle-track, also, connecting with Collingwood and Golden Bay, is nearly completed by the Government. This track passes along the coast northwards, thence up the Heaphy Valley to the Golden Downs, and down the Aorere Valley to Golden Bay. Here again is another coal-basin, which, though of inferior value to the older deposits on the western side, is likely to become of importance, having at the present time one mine in full work. Another coal-basin exists at West Wanganui and Pakawau.

In the Aorere Valley, of which Collingwood is the port, alluvial mining is still found to be payable, ami the country contains some valuable timber in the upper part not yet utilised. Nineteen miles south, in Blind Bay, lies the small port of page 57 Waitapu, from which a considerable amount of sawn timber is exported, drawn from the Takaka Valley, and brought down by a steam tramway from the upper mills. From the head of this valley the main road is carried over a pass in the Pikikirunga Range, 3,476 ft. high, through the villages of East and West Takaka, Riwaka, Motueka, and Moutere to the town of Richmond, eight miles from Nelson. Inland are also the villages of Ngatimoti, Dovedale, Tadmor, and Sherry, each the centre of a number of small farms, and all connected by fairly-good dray-roads.

An inland road, partly bridle-track and partly dray-road, has been made from Nelson to Canterbury, by way of Tophouse, Wairau Gorge, Tarndale, Clarence Valley, Jollie's Pass, and the Waiau Plains. On the Hanmer, a tributary of the Waiau-ua, is a Government Sanatorium, at an elevation of 1,000 ft. above sea-level, and among hills 6,000 ft. high. Here there are hot mineral springs, much visited by persons suffering from rheumatism and skin-diseases. It is reached by coach and rail from Christchurch in ten hours. The main-trunk railway-line is constructed to Culverden, twelve miles north of the Hurunui, the southern boundary of the district. From Culverden a good coach-road passes through Rotherham and Waiau-ua to the East Coast at Kaikoura, connecting with Blenheim and Nelson.