Trip to Kawatiri and Speargrass

(27 March 2010)

Most of us set out from Decks Reserve at 10am for Kawatiri Junction with a few from Nelson due to meet us at 1.30pm at Speargrass Station which they did. We travelled in 5 cars with one carload getting sidetracked to the Hidden café at Kohatu to have a coffee and to see the sculptured garden and art works there.

Kawatiri Railway Station is somewhere most of us whiz past on the way to Murchison or places further south but this time we stopped and stepped back in time.

A 30 minute loop walk up steep steps to cross a footbridge and through the old tunnel and then more steep steps was not too difficult. A bit wet and rough underfoot in the tunnel a torch was recommended but wasn't essential. The traffic noise on State Highway 6 faded away and we walked through a remnant of beech forest. Those of us looking ahead to the Festival of Lights photo competition took the opportunity to take some macro and heritage shots. An artist was spotted down on the rocks below us next to the Hope River with easel and paintbrush capturing the same scene in a different medium.

Lunch was eaten on the site of the shortest lived railway Station run by the Railways Dept- 5 years and 21 days between 1926 and 1931. It was one of 25 stations on the Nelson section and marked the furthest extent of operations on this line. It was hard to believe over 300 labourers, tradesmen and support staff were housed here as the tunnel was built.

As a station it never really got busy having only two trains a week on Mondays and Wednesdays. Goods consigned to Kawatiri had to be collected the same day and outbound goods could only be sent from Glenhope. Passengers could only leave from Glenhope so the line saw only a few passenger excursion trains and railway construction trains. No wonder it was suspended during the depression of the 1930's.

On to Speargrass Station via State Highway 63, a 20 minute drive towards St Arnaud turning off at the letterbox which Margaret Lusty wrote about in her book "Beyond the Letterbox". Margaret talked to us in 2009 and she accompanied us this trip to join up with other former residents of the area- Jill Blechynden, John Coote, Mr and Mrs White. The present owners of Speargrass Station are Ian and Jeanette Thorneycroft, a young couple expecting their first child in September.

Speargrass covers 1100 hectares of which 700 are able to be farmed the rest being too steep. Ian raises Hereford cattle, sheep and some deer and grows crops such as choumolier, Swedes and turnips as well as baleage for winter feed. Eight dogs and 3 hens completed a very rural scene round the original homestead which some of the members remembered as having a beautiful garden nurtured by Ian's mother but which needed some loving care and attention to bring back to it's former glory.

Ian said the Station was profitable only because he did most of the work himself, he could use tractors to save time, and because the clay hills produced grass in the winter and the wet gravel flats fed the stock in the summer. They complemented each other. Manuka was a weed and sprays were not much help. When questioned about leaving it to gain carbon credits he said that would only be a short term solution- what was his family to do with a station full of manuka in 30 years time?

We all wandered around the garden and sheds of the homestead while the St Arnaud crowd reminisced in the back paddock trying to figure out where various points of interest on distant Mt Robert lay. Only 8 miles away as the crow flies it still seemed as if some of the ghosts of the past were there saying how easy we have it now. Well Ian Thorneycroft would disagree as he tries to renovate the house and make it warmer.

Jeanette Thorneycroft we discovered went to Motueka High School. Her maiden name was Winn of Winns Cycle shop in High Street Motueka. She lived at Pangatotara and when we left and our carload went to look at the DOC information centre at St Arnaud discovered she was also an artist- her hand painted greeting cards on sale there were of native birds from the area.

A quick look at Lake Rotoiti, a last slap at the sandflies which the Thorneycrofts assured us only came on humid days and we drove back to Motueka via Golden Downs, Belgrove and Waimea West. A grand day out.

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