Open Writing

“I’ve been thinking Mary.”

“I know Mary and I’m asking a lot but if I did the winter ploughing and got the seed in it wouldn’t be too hard, the bairns would help you and you have the hens and the cow and folk we know would lend a hand now and then. I was just thinking if me and a couple of the lads were to go and have a look over the hill, Tuckett said there was good land over there, if we saw what it was like and then came back and talked it over. What do you think? It would be for the laddies, there’s more folk coming here all the time and less room.”

Just an imaginary story of what might have taken place around the fireside of one of the early settlers one evening on the edge of winter but maybe not far from the truth. More ships were coming into Dunedin with more immigrants in search of a better life. Some settled in the town but many more began to move further afield. But to where and how?

Thomas Burns, visiting parishioners in Saddle Hill on the outskirts of Dunedin, noted the Taieri Plain below the hill and beyond that Lake Waihola and the Tokomairiro Plain, (poling a canoe through a swamp in Maori.) A lot of work would have to be put into these plains before they could be farmed but they were flanked by foothills on either side, the low hills which lay between the sea and the plains and the higher ones which led to Central Otago. The slopes were well drained and had good land fit for farming, work on the plains could wait. Yes there was plenty of room for those who wanted more than city-dwelling, those who had ambitions for their families.

But how do you get to places like this? Do you battle through bush, up hill and down dale, getting lost more times than you can count and then ending up in some deep, flaxy swamp, or do you find another way? Another way if possible and it was possible.

Just south of Dunedin harbour lay Taieri Mouth, a long established whaling station and the entrance to the Taieri River which ran inland to the high mountains in the west, it was an access route to the interior. Since time immemorial man had always used waterways for travel, so it was not long before a thriving ferry service got underway up the Taieri and from there one could sail across Lake Waihola to the Tokomairiro Plain. In time, with the advent of the Gold Rush, an inland road would be established to be used by the Cobb and Co coaches, but for now it was by boat and shank’s pony.

Our imaginary group of Scots set off on their journey by this route and eventually found themselves on the foothills between the sea and the Tokomairiro Plain, in a place to be called Fairfax which was later to develop into Milton. We will leave other groups to move on or to settle on the Taieri, they all have their tales to tell, but we will stay with our Scots in Fairfax. Below them the flax swamp, over the hill the sea, and the Tokomairiro River wending its way through the swamp and into the estuary. The land was above the swamp, could be easily cleared and cultivated, and there was lots of it. The farm was no longer a dream for Angus so back he went with his tale to Mary. No doubt she ummed and ahhed a bit and looked at her nice neat home but being a Highlander, eventually she would follow her man and so Fairfax came into being, a few families and then more. A church, a school and a store appeared and a cemetery was established up on that hill and for a while things rested there.

With more folks coming it wasn’t long before other things started to happen. “Let’s clear the swamp.” “Ah but all that flax and think of the uses it can be put to.” So down on the flat the flax mill was built, the first mill in Milton. The swamp was cleared and drained and soon the road to Dunedin was in. Once the bulk of the flax was gone the mill became a flour mill and much later a woollen mill, which was to attract folk from Yorkshire, but that lay in the future.

Slowly and surely Fairfax ceased to be the centre as folk settled on the plain. More farms were developed then shops and a school, brickworks, a pottery, a blacksmiths, hotels, sawmills and all manner of things and as the coaches rolled through during the Gold Rush of the sixties Milton boomed. It continued to thrive as sheep farming increased and wool and lamb hit the export market. Angus had made the right decision, his sons were wealthy farmers with land of their own and his daughters made great farmers’ wives. Their journey from the glen had proved to be worthwhile after all.

As I head for my daily walk, out of Milton and up the hill I pass through fine green farmland and rich dark ploughed fields, I see large modern homesteads with landscaped gardens and the farmer getting around on his four wheeled bike or new tractor, not for him the horse and hand plough. Tucked away in the valleys are the odd cob cottages, such as Mary would have called home, around them grow wild gooseberries and apple trees and a few have been extended and modernised, as have many of the old croft houses in Scotland. In spring young lambs gang together in groups and skip around but run to mum as I approach and daffodils grow by the roadside and under the willow trees. It is a lovely place to wander through. On my more energetic days I climb over the style and climb to the top of the hill to look out at the Pacific and over to the now fertile plains and the Blue Mountains to the west.

Dropping down from the hill I pause for a breather, sitting on the wooden bench in that early cemetery which is still in use today. Then I walk back through the old part and note the inscriptions on the stones, “from Golspie,” “from Strath Carron,” and “from Strath Naver,” that lonely glen which the guardian spirits still watch over, that empty place, the place of the bracken and the adder, the place on which I too have gazed many times. Rest in peace you ancients for the folk of the glen have found a grand place to live.