NEW ZEALAND

OTAGO

PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

Published by Authority.

Vol. X. DUNEDIN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1866. No. 401
[WITH SUPPLEMENT.]

[The following resignation and appointment should have formed the first part of the Gazette of Friday last.]

Provincial Secretary’s Office.

Dunedin, 28th December, 1865.

HIS Honor the Superintendent directs it to be notified that he has received and accepted the resignation of

John Mouat, Esq., M.P.C.,
as a Member of the Executive Council of the Province of Otago.

George Brodie,
Provincial Secretary.

Provincial Secretary’s Office,

Dunedin, 28th December, 1865.

HIS Honor the Superintendent directs it to be notified that he has been pleased to appoint

George Lloyd, Esquire, M.P.C.,
to be a Member of the Executive Council of the Province of Otago.

George Brodie,
Provincial Secretary.

ROAD FROM THE WAKATIP TO THE WEST COAST.

THE following Memorandum and Report is published for general information.

Henry John Miller,
Secretary for Public Works.

29th December, 1865.

Road Department, Otago,
Dunedin, December 27th, 1865.

(Memo. for Secretary of Public Works.)

I herewith beg to forward Mr. Howdon’s Report on the route from the Wakatipu to the West Coast vid Hollyford Valley and Lake M’Kerrow, to Martin’s Bay.

The only subject I need note, is the cost of forming a track or road from the mouth of Greenstone River to the head of Lake M’Kerrow. I find the distance by the map is fifty miles. I understand road material

is good, but the soil is spongy and soft, rendering metalling necessary. This being the case, it would be of no use Government undertaking part without completing the whole.

The cost of a horse track, metalled four feet and formed seven feet, would be £600 a mile, or for the whole distance, £30,000.

The cost of a dray road, metalled fourteen feet and formed to eighteen feet, would be £2,500 a mile, or for the whole distance, £125,000.

J. T. Thomson,
Engineer of Roads and Works.

Survey Camp, Rees’ Woolshed,
20th December, 1865.

J. T. Thomson, Esq., Chief Surveyor,

Sir,— I have the honor to inform you that, agreeably to your instructions of the 13th October, I left Queenstown on the 27th of the same month, with the object of ascertaining whether there existed a practicability of constructing a road between the Wakatipu and M’Kerrow Lakes.

Before starting, I was informed that several parties had left some weeks previously, with the avowed intention of proceeding to Jackson’s Bay by the Greenstone and Hollyford Rivers.

On the 1st November, we left Von Tunzelmann’s station, having awaited there the arrival of two of the men with the pack horses, which had to be taken round by Kingston and Five Rivers.

At White’s shepherds’ hut, we were detained two days and a half by heavy rain, in consequence of which the Von was flooded, so that we did not get a proper start till the afternoon of Saturday the 4th November.

Crossing the Von above the junction of the branches, we proceeded to follow M’Kellar’s route, ascending first a steep spur 600 or 700 feet above the river. From the top of this spur, up the Von Valley (north branch), to the foot of a low gap in the Thomson Mountains, a distance of about six and a half miles, the course followed was over flat or gently undulating ground. The ascent to and descent from the top of the gap are steep, and took us an hour and a quarter’s travelling. Half an hour more took us to the Mararoa, which we forded below its junction with the Trench Burn; and again, three miles up, below its junction with the Pond Burn.