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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 2 (June 1, 1933)

German and Irish

German and Irish.

“About seven miles from Napier the track turned abruptly to the right, and a deep river bars the way. On the other side of the river, which is about a hundred yards wide, smoke rises from the turf chimney of a small hut built of sods. Two or three vigorous ‘coo-ees’ bring the ferryman out of his whare, and he proceeds to work a crazy ramshackle sort of ferry boat over to our side, by hauling at a chain. A rough-looking German is Nat Tieck, commonly known as ‘the colonel,’ a man of few words. We quickly dismount, and lead our horses on to the cranky raft. I help the ferryman to haul on the chain, and we are soon landed on the other side. The ‘colonel's’ wife, a red-headed Irishwoman, is digging potatoes in a fenced-in patch. Her I politely address with ‘Güten Morgen, Frau Tieck, wie geht's ihnen?’ To which the red-headed one replies with some asperity, ‘Ah, go along wid yez and yer blarney!’

“We climb on to our horses’ backs and jog along another mile to the village of Clive, a new settlement, which consists of a Maori pa fenced on the river's bank, a few huts, a weather-boarded publichouse, and last, a well-built house, the home of Mr. Ferguson, an elderly North of Ireland man, who is king of the place. He is a magistrate and keeps the general store, where you can buy anything from a ‘goashore’ iron pot or a spade to a tin of sardines or a bottle of hair-oil. As we enter the public room of the little wooden page 29 house, there behind the board which stretches across an angle of the room, forming the bar, there is a pleasant vision, the landlord's half-caste daughter, the possessor of a pretty face and comely figure, fine and generous curves.

“Our horses were quite fresh after their feed and two hours rest, and we were soon loping along at a bush canter, the usual colonial pace. We passed Pakowhai, with its stockaded enclosure and thatched huts overhung by luxuriant peach trees. Shortly before sunset we descended some low hills and came to a river, on the far side of which was a wooden house with reed-thatched roof, backed by a stable built of rough hewn slabs. Two or three native huts stood near. This was Ngawhakatatara, our resting place for the night. Next day we got on to Ruataniwha Plains, on the extremity of which was the sheep station for which we were bound. On our left rose low hills, while the plain, covered with coarse native grass, with here and there a palm-like cabbage-tree, stretched for some twenty miles up to the edge of the Seventy-mile Bush. On our right the margin of the plain was marked by the sombre range of the Ruahine Mountains. By sundown we reached Te Kereru, the sheep station of our friends. A neat weather-board house with a verandah encircling it, stood on a gentle eminence, backed by the bush, with a wide prospect over the great yellow plain. The forest near the house had been roughly cleared and burnt, leaving some of the larger trees still standing; their blackened stumps and scorched branches pointing in indignant remonstrance to the unheeding sky. Near at hand was the woolshed, a long wooden erection, and beyond this again were various huts and stockyards. We were warmly welcomed by the two partners. The gang of sheep-shearers had arrived, and for the next few days from early dawn to late in the evening, every soul would be hard at work.”

Then the return to Onepoto camp: “Hark to that bugle call resounding in the still morning air! I am within two miles of home. As I recognise the reveillé, which is sounding at the barracks on the top of the hill, I kick Robin into a canter. There is just time for me to get to my house, a gorgeous structure made apparently of sardine-boxes and biscuit-tins, there to jump into my tub, hurry on my uniform and get up to barracks in time as officer of the day, to inspect the issue of bread and meat.”