• I notice you have avoided the problem of explaining how the school crossed the Wairoa River without a bridge. Does anyone know? Perhaps they were just lucky and the river level was low at the time otherwise the goats would have been swimming.Is there anywhere a photograph of the goat team?
  
  Roger Batt
  
  Kia ora Roger, I couldn't find any mention of how the goats crossed the Wairoa with their heavy load. it appears there was at least one ford, and also a ferry carrying passengers across the Wairoa as early as 1843. An article in the Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle on 11 November 1843 mentions the Wairoa Ferry-house catching fire. Another article on 4 May 1844, mentions a new ferry being built for the crossing that could carry a loaded bullock cart across the Wairoa.
  
  There is a lovely article published in the Nelson Evening Mail in 1924 that describes crossing the Wairoa before the first bridge went in.
  
  The Hollybush Inn established 1847 'stood near the fordway, which was about where the railway now crosses the river, and the proprietor kept a boat in the deeper water below, to act as a ferry when required... A ford “farther down the river was known as Bush's ford, and was more favoured by settlers, who carted wood and produce on bullock drays into town. Being a wide and shallow fordway, carts could cross even when there was a good fresh in the river.” … It was customary for those carting into town to leave their homes at 6 or 3 o'clock in the morning and anxious fathers would often tramp long distances to see their young lads across the river safely, or, if need be, to wade in if the drays stuck in midstream.'
  
  Extract from In the Waimeas, reminiscences of the early days. (1924, March 8). Nelson Evening Mail, p.4. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NEM19240308.2.30
  

  Posted by Roger Batt, 28/04/2020 6:16pm (4 years ago)

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