THE ORONGORONGO
OVER THE TRACK FROM WAINUI
WHERE THE WATER COMES FROM THE TUNNEL THROUGH THE HILL
Over the first range to the east of Petone is Wellington’s present main source of water supply, the catchment area of Wainui-o-mata, of 6880 acres, the old Wainui reservoir and the bigger Morton dam, 17½ miles from the city, and at the back of that again over a ridge most beautifully dressed out in dense virgin bush, the Orongorongo catchment area, 5220 acres, country wild beyond easy description, but for its crazy wildness the more beautiful.
There is little real bush left near Wellington now where fifty years ago the green grew to the water’s edge, and there is none within many miles of the city comparable with the heavy timbering and dense undergrowth of much of the Wainui and all of the Orongorongo catchment areas. As scenic reserves both would be delightful, but sight-seeing parties and a city’s water supply cannot get on together, and those who set out to cross the ridges must produce written authority or turn back again.
Last week, a Post reporter, at the invitation of the engineer in charge of Wellington’s water supply system, Mr. J. M. Morice, had the privilege of making the trip, and left Wellington expecting a day out, and was in no wise disappointed.
An early start was made, Wainui-o-mata was reached by car, and then on again for a mile or so through the first of the real bush to Semple’s camp and the western portal of the tunnel which by February — or a week or two one way or the other — will drive through the hill almost a clear two miles to the Orongorongo stream, and so make possible a flow of an additional four and a half million gallons daily to the city when the new steel pipe line is laid.
At the camp, the car, so to speak, was stabled, and the horses were led out. The Post man was asked to make his choice, and not being in any sense a Tom Mix or a William S. Hart he chose the horse usually, he was told, set aside for ladies, seldom cavorting unduly on bad turns and a guaranteed non-slipper, but for his choice he had no regrets. It was a good horse, perhaps a little patronising and apt to look round in an inquiring way when the right-hand rein was touched on a bad left-hand corner over a hundred-foot drop, and to snort indignantly by way of protest at any suggestion that he did not know his job after three or four crossings each week during the last two years or so.
HEAVY GOING
Actually the ridge as seen from the camp did not appear to be severe enough for horseback travelling, but like all other bush ridges it was higher and steeper and rougher than it appeared, and the crossing took up two hours of the morning, steady going at that. Essentially the going must be steady, for on the whole length of the narrow, twisting bridle track, rough metal here and there, clay and mud, corduroy, there is not a twenty-foot run of level riding, and at every second turn a slip would be a long one, but the horses know it from many crossings and plod along casually enough.
The near bush views are very beautiful: rimu, old man rata, grown out of its strangling creeper habit into a true tree these last hundred years, perhaps two hundred; birch, tree ferns, toi palms, kidney fern everywhere, Prince of Wales feathers on the top of the ridge. Not many birds except for a few native pigeons, a scared possum now and then, deer if one has the luck to see them, but the distant views, away across the deep valleys to ridge after ridge each as densely bushed, are finer still.
Happily that bush will last as long as care can help Nature to keep it green; it is essential for the town’s water supply that it shall stand. The axe does not threaten it; fire is the one danger. The climb is rather easier than the steep descent, from the rider’s point of view at any rate, though probably the horses have their own opinions, but going or coming, up or down, the trip is fine indeed.
OVER THE TOP
From the razorback separating the two valleys the track drops more directly on the Orongorongo side, perhaps six corners to the hundred yards instead of eight, but the general grade is heavier, and a second hour’s plodding brings the Orongorongo camp into view, tucked into the side of the hill.
On the Wainui side there is ample level ground for a camp site, but the Orongorongo has carved out a steep-sided V valley and site had to be made for the huts and machine shops. There is just enough room at one point for a stable and a pipe store on the river bed, but other level spots are under water when the fresh comes down.
It is a wild enough spot, and single men and grass widowers is the rule adopted by the men working on the eastern tunnel drive, but as a camp it is thoroughly up-to-date: electric light, turbo-generated, without restriction on how it shall be used; hot and cold water during the 24 hours of the day for the tunnellers; and a battery of electric radiators, though that provision is only indirectly intended for human comfort. When gelignite freezes it develops a tendency to go off rather easily, and the radiators play their little part in the magazine, not in the huts.
THE FIRST STOPPAGE
The day on which the visit was made was unique in the Orongorongo tunnel history in that it was the first occasion on which tunnelling work was held up through a fault of the co-operative workers, but after all the fault was small enough.
When in 1920 the agreement between the City Council and Mr. R. Semple was drawn up, a hard-and-fast clause was inserted providing that there should be no stoppage on account of disputes and squabblings or to defaults by the tunnellers in general, and that clause has been observed to the last letter. But last week there was a stoppage, through an accident, not a default.
A big rimu had been felled and cut into lengths on the hillside for propping work in the tunnel, and a ten-foot log got out of hand and crashed down on the pipe line carrying water power to the air pump and lighting plant, and there was an end to tunnelling operations until the big pipe had been unearthed over the length affected and a new section dropped into place and clamped up.
Few industrial undertakings of the magnitude of this tunnel have been carried out over so long a period without one hampering industrial trouble, and with, so far, no more than trifling stoppages due to machinery breakdowns.
RECORDS
That alone is a record for such work, but other records have also been set up. Up to the present, after over three years, no serious accident has occurred underground — a record, surely — but the job as a whole, Mr. Semple maintains, sets a new standard for Australasia for overall speed and also for bursts of driving, the total progress — that is, driving from both ends — averaging between 400 and 500 feet a month through iron-hard rock, and the rate for a single end drive climbing as high as 281 feet per month, five men to the face, working right round the clock, three shifts of eight hours each.
The tunnel, when driven through in February or thereabouts, will measure up at 10,523 feet, 37 feet short of two miles, and to date 5200 feet have been driven from the Wainui side and 3300 from the Orongorongo, leaving almost exactly 2000 feet to be drilled and blasted through.
Another record may be mentioned: When the agreement was entered into it was provided that the men who started in at the hill faces should see the work through, unless illness or accident should step in, and today the thirty-six men in the Wainui and Orongorongo camps are the same thirty-six who joined up with Mr. Semple in 1920.
Certainly, there was a tag to that particular clause in the agreement setting out the pains and penalties that would follow the default of any member of the party, but tag or no tag, the tunnellers, by sticking together, arguments and disagreements among themselves notwithstanding, have set a standard in teamwork. They do not deny that they earn big money, but they maintain that they give good value.
