Interviewee: John Robert (Jack) Murrell

Interview date: 23 August 2004

Interviewer and abstractor: Morag Forrester

Preamble by Jack Murrell: What is now “Murrell’s Grand View House”, a Bed and Breakfast Lodge, has undergone several styles of description, partly due to changes in language, partly to actual changes in what was offered to the public. Of necessity, it had to provide full accommodation and began life as “Accommodation House” which was used by many maps and tourist guides. Then “Guest House” was called in to serve for some years followed by B&B in 2001. For two or more generations of the Murrell family, it was simply “the House”. The tariff has risen from 3s/4d (or 33 cents in 2006) to $280 for a couple for one night.

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006: States his full name is JOHN ROBERT MURRELL and that he was born on 27/DECEMBER/1934 in GALA ST., INVERCARGILL

014: Affirms that his GREAT GRANDFATHER, ROBERT MURRELL (OLD BOB) was the first member of the family to arrive in NEW ZEALAND in the 1800s. He also says his maternal GREAT GRANDFATHER, JAMES SCOTT, arrived with OLD BOB as building contractors.

025: Explains that the MURRELL family history begins with an earlier family member who was listed as a bricklayer in ALFRISON ON CUCHMERE in EAST SUSSEX in the BRITISH census of the early 1700s. Adds that in a later census, the same MURRELL appears as a publican from TUNBRIDGE WELLS and that five of his children are also listed in the same document.

040: Comments that OLD BOB was not on that list, the reason being that he, along with JIM SCOTT, was probably enlisted in the BRITISH ARMY and had served in a minor incursion in northern SPAIN. However, he says, they next appear in the household of the GOVERNOR GENERAL of TASMANIA.

093: States that when the said GOVERNOR GENERAL returned to ENGLAND, both SCOTT and MURRELL could have returned with him. Instead, he says, they opted for army discharge and headed for the GOLD fields at BALLARAT, AUSTRALIA.

100: Mentions that part of the family stories include SCOTT forming a reputation as someone who would read aloud from the novels by SIR WALTER SCOTT. Describes these books as the most popular historical reading material available to the ENGLISH-speaking world (in the mid-1800s).

111: Goes on to say that the goldminers, many of whom would have been illiterate or without books, could enjoy these readings at the cost of just one candle – an expensive item.

141: States that after their stint in the goldfields, one of the two men (unclear which one) had a BAKERY business in TASMANIA. The family story goes, he says, that whichever GREAT GRANDFATHER it was woke up one morning from a drinking binge to find his wife and business partner and all the money they’d accumulated had gone.

152: Records that at that time, NEW ZEALAND, was enjoying a spell of economic confidence due to the goldrush at GABRIEL’S GULLY, near LAWRENCE. Says it is understood ROBERT MURRELL and JAMES SCOTT arrived with a horse and dray, an anvil, pitsaw, axe, hammers etc., with the aim of building homesteads on the SHEEP STATIONS that were being offered under government lease. He later added that apparently the STATION holder was granted a “pre-emptive right” on condition he complied with certain conditions, one of which was to build a proper dwelling for a homestead within two years of taking up the lease. The original camp, he stated, was on HOME CREEK to the west of FREESTONE HILL.

163: Explains that they would go into the bush to cut down the trees which were pit-sawn for building and in the case of the first homestead at MANAPOURI STATION, (at BALLOON LOOP) they built two rooms, two doors (one internal, one external) and a fireplace for each room. Mentions having seen the remains of where those fireplaces stood. He later added that they used rocks from FREESTONE HILL and that the site of the homestead has shifted downstream since then.

176: Says that earlier, they built the homestead at WANTWOOD STATION near GORE as well as a dwelling at the CASTLEROCK STATION near LUMSDEN. Comments that during the 1860s CASTLEROCK played a central role in the district. The timber they used, he later said, is thought to have been cut from woods in the CAROLINE VALLEY.

187: In reply to question, states that the leaseholder of MANAPOURI STATION at that time, FREEMAN RAYNEY JACKSON had heard there was an extensive basin in the TE ANAU area and set out for there, possibly with MAORI guides, to the top of BLACKMOUNT HILL, and would probably have seen that it was reasonably prosperous.

195: States that it’s in the public records that JACKSON wrote to the government officer saying that there was a stony plain in the district that he would be happy to take off their hands “for a few bob (shillings)”.

200: Adds that once he’d secured the deal (in 1857), JACKSON, rode over the MAORI track that leads to MARAKURA (or MARAE KURA) – the MAORI kaik or kaianga – which stood on the same plain as TE ANAU now stands. However, after crossing the MARAROA RIVER and its confluence with the WAIAU RIVER, about six miles south of LAKE MANAPOURI, he says, JACKSON would have ridden up the tussock flat towards MANAPOURI.

214: Considers JACKSON’S route would have been “quite finite” because on the right there would have been (and still is) peat bog while to the left are the gullies that cut through 15-20 metres of steep sandbank to the WAIAU RIVER.

220: Mentions that it was relatively recently he was able to surmise the reason JACKSON would have made his first camp by the present site of the road bridge over the HOME CREEK on the western corner of the FREESTONE HILL. He explains that when making camp, it’s important to have water and firewood and so if JACKSON had gone any further northeast, he would have been in peat bog and to the southwest he would have faced steep gullies.

235: Affirms that in the late 1860s, MANAPOURI STATION consisted of much more acreage than in later years. States that the leasehold titles of these types of runs generally stopped at the forest. Adds that it was normal practise to be granted freehold of a couple of hundred acres, possibly in two places. And that normally, the leaseholder would freehold at a crossing or between swamp and another river so that no-one else could get access to the district. The other freehold site, he added, would be at the HOMESTEAD.

257: Disputes the veracity of OLD BOB earlier having built the accommodation house at STAG CREEK, DIPTON, although avers to his great grandfather having bought the building at a later stage. Adds that along with SCOTT, OLD BOB was also sawmilling in CAROLINE, across the river from STAG CREEK.

267: Interruption due to microphone re-positioning.

272: Continues saying that as a condition of the lease, FREEMAN JACKSON had to build a homestead within two years and that he chose a site at BALLOON LOOP on the UPPER WAIAU (or WAIROA – the correct name of the UPPER WAIAU, he later said, is WAIROA and that in time it may be restored). States the river went round in an ox-bow loop to the north until about 1958.

286: Refers to a print on his living-room wall which depicts the original HOMESTEAD and a smaller building at BALLOON LOOP. States the isthmus was wide enough for a team of oxen and wagon to be used to pull felled red-beech up to the home site. In 1967, he added, the isthmus was reduced to 300mm wide.

298: Goes on to describe a steep track to the east of the riverbank and that it was there that OLD BOB built the first WOOLSHED and MUSTERING yards. Says a building post is still evident and has been fenced off as an HISTORIC site – now a copse in a paddock northwest of the main road. [He later described a photograph (presumably held by the ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY ARCHIVES) depicting OLD BOB and a distinguished botanist who was to become the CURATOR of the MELBOURNE GARDENS).]

310: States that to the west of the HOMESTEAD building was a low river channel and although damp with little sunshine, this was where the garden was developed. Says a WILLOW was planted by the river’s edge and mentions that a road used to run along the side of that garden. But, he adds, in recent years a large load of gravel had been dumped on it to stop people fatally driving into the river.

318: Recalls that about the time he was 27 years old (1961), the river cut through the isthmus and increasingly widened while its flow quickened and it eventually cut away the HOMESTEAD site and removed the old garden.

327: Looking again at the print, he says the present road follows to the right of the HOMESTEAD up a scarp and down to the river.

333: Mentions that the FREESTONE HILL no longer has any stones on it but some examples can still be seen both on the backstep of GRANDVIEW HOUSE and the doorsteps of a house on CATHEDRAL DRIVE. Says stones from the hill were carried by OLD BOB and JAMES SCOTT to be shaped into fireplaces for the HOMESTEAD.

341: Says that when a STABLE for the farm (now the site of the HOME CREEK NURSERY) was being built, those fireplace stones were transferred from the UPPER WAIAU site. When that stable was later abandoned, HELEN MACGIBBON, (former owner of the first house on CATHEDRAL DRIVE) recovered the stones and used them for her steps. “The most recycled building material in the district, I think.”

352: Replies that OLD BOB’S WIFE, (LIZZIE) ELIZA ANDERSON, was from EDINBURGH. Goes on to explain that when both OLD BOB and JAMES SCOTT became financially secure in NEW ZEALAND, they wrote to two women they knew in the ‘old country’ inviting the ladies to join them.

368: The women, he says, reached MELBOURNE where the two men met and married one each “on the steps of the CATHEDRAL – to save money – and presumably came back on the next ship”. Comments that in those days, the shortest distance between AUSTRALIA and NEW ZEALAND was from TASMANIA to BLUFF, “straight down the trade winds”.

389: Thereafter, he says, SCOTT returned to sawmilling at CAROLINE. As background, he explains that FREEMAN JACKSON did not live on MANAPOURI STATION, since his family was already comfortably ensconced on a farm at EASTERN BUSH. Adds that he used the MANAPOURI RUN for surplus sheep.

401: Further explains that in those days there was no meat export so any surplus sheep had to be killed and boiled down for use as tallow etc. which could be sold. Recalls seeing a boiling down area at MARAROA STATION when he was in his twenties.

411: States that FREEMAN JACKSON retained MURRELL as a BOUNDARY RIDER between MANAPOURI STATION and neighbouring RUNS such as TE ANAU LAKES (later called LYNWOOD) and BURWOOD.

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001: Continues off-tape discussion of the distances OLD BOB was expected to cover as BOUNDARY RIDER.

016: On other days, he says, OLD BOB would probably have spent much time cutting firewood and that he’d have built the WOOLSHED, MUSTERING YARDS above the HOMESTEAD before LIZZIE arrived as his bride. A photo of the yards and shed exists, he added later.

035: Estimates OLD BOB would have been in his 40s and LIZZIE in her late 20s when they wed. (Confuses the names, mentioning MAGGIE). Says they had two children, ROBERT (YOUNG BOB) and ALEC. The latter, he says, was apprenticed to the BLACKSMITH at ORETI, married his employer’s daughter, moved to GORE and ended his days at MATAURA. States there were three daughters from that marriage, so the MURRELL name fell away from that side of the family.

069: Affirms that OLD BOB and LIZZIE lived at BALLOON LOOP until FREEMAN JACKSON sold his RUNHOLDER’S lease. Mentions the authorities built a road from TUATAPERE (the BLACKMOUNT ROAD) and that it followed along the line of the TAKITIMUS (THE KEY ROAD) and on up the MARAROA, down the VON (RIVER) to MT NICHOLAS and WALTER PEAK. Says the aim was to participate in the wealth being created by goldmining in the QUEENSTOWN area.

086: States the road workers built turf chimneys beside their tents near the junction to the pass and the ORETI (RIVER). Says the area is still called the CHIMNEYS (it lies north of the HAYCOCK hills and BURWOOD BUSH). He later mentioned that there has been wide and erroneous speculation as to the origin of the name CHIMNEYS adding that they were still standing when his MOTHER, ALICE, saw them between 1930 and 1954.

100: Mentions that one day at BALLOON LOOP, the men came in from working to find LIZZIE (he again mis-names her as MAGGIE) wasn’t there, nor was the water bucket. States it was quite a walk and climb down to the river to fill the bucket. Says the men found her clinging to bushes at the side of the bank in water 12-15ft deep. Considers she must have very nearly died of hypothermia.

116: On their living conditions, says a great deal of time would have been spent cutting firewood. Replies there would have been a (probably nominal) salary for managing a STATION and the house would have gone with the job.

130: Even in his own younger years, he says the award wage was not much, recalling that he earned 7s 6d a week as a FARM LABOURER at ORETI when he was about 14. However, a move to the WOOLSHED at BURWOOD STATION earned him an increase to 10s an hour during the same working holiday. Remembers this latter wage was more than twice the average skilled worker’s award rate.

143: Returning to the 1860s, states the population in the district would have been quite high. “It takes quite a number of men to work a SHEEP STATION when there are no tractors.”

151: Referring again to living conditions at BALLOON LOOP, which he adds has been adjudged by local historian JOHN HALL-JONES as the first building in the district, a garden was a necessity. “You had to grow everything that would grow.” The garden was in the damp silt dry watercourse below the scarp west of the HOMESTEAD.

171: States they had planted currant bushes, apple trees, possibly pears and other fruit trees in the garden. Mentions that the immigrants would have arrived with pockets full of seeds which were scattered anywhere and everywhere in the hope they would become plants.

188: Mentions that it soon became common practise for the runholders to move their HOMESTEADS to be near the road. As for MANAPOURI STATION, the new owner (either RATTRAY and TOLMIE or later still HOLMES and MCLEAN) built a new HOMESTEAD at its present site and planted redwoods. Says they also built another large WOOLSHED.

208: Says that among the STATION hands there would have been a cook and someone hired just to cut firewood. Replies that all the labourers would have lived in huts on the property; single men’s bunkrooms and several married couples’ cottages.

222: Explains that when a HOMESTEAD was rebuilt, it was usually made from the same materials as the former dwelling; everything would have been transported to the new site. Says the reason would have been because of the enormous cost of pit-sawing, which he describes in some detail.

259: Responding to question, says many government records of the district were destroyed by fire at the J G WATSON’S building in INVERCARGILL. Goes on to say that the men would sometimes have had to wait months for their pay cheques (which usually came after the wool cheque was paid), then go to INVERCARGILL, drink their earnings and forget to return.

292: Affirms that in an attempt to prevent this loss of workers each year, the STATION owners asked OLD BOB to establish an HOTEL in the district where the farm labourers could go for a drink instead of disappearing off to INVERCARGILL.

303: Says that while it was mainly a pub, there was also some limited accommodation at the HOTEL which was situated near THE KEY (now known as BOB’S CORNER).

320: Participant is distracted momentarily by postal courier.

323: Picks up the thread of thought and states that OLD BOB dismantled and transported the accommodation house at STAG CREEK to the site at BOB’S CORNER, which is across the road from the old MANAPOURI STATION WOOLSHED.

336: Mentions there are now BLUEGUM trees that mark the site and in recent times, someone from overseas undertook some light fossicking around the area and dug up some old GIN BOTTLES.

343: States that his GREAT GRANDMOTHER died in the HOTEL and that her sons grew up there. Goes on to say that YOUNG BOB would have gone to (CATHOLIC) school in INVERCARGILL though he’s not sure of its name.

352: Replies to question of whether or not other children may have been born to OLD BOB and LIZZIE, by saying that someone was buried at BALLOON LOOP but is not thought to have been a family member.

360: Referring back to the TAKITIMO HOTEL, says there is a photograph of it which shows it was no grander than a large army hut with a couple of other huts/stables.

373: On the issue of whether people travelled widely in the late 1800s, states that YOUNG BOB was known to walk regularly from the HOTEL to MURRAY CREEK or CASTLE ROCK to pick up the mail. Continues that YOUNG BOB, who was tall, always walked rather than go on horseback and that his pace was a speedy six miles per hour, even through bush country.

384: Living in a still remote area, he says YOUNG BOB’S only contact with someone of his own age would have been JAMES SCOTT’S daughter MARGARET when the family lived either at the CASTLEROCK corner or further east. Here there’s an aside about a MISS ADAMSON who kept a “lying-in” home for pregnant women who were close to giving birth.

400: Comments that his GRANDPARENTS and their CHILDREN were brought up in isolation which affected their use of common ENGLISH language. Says they picked up phrases and terminology from novels by SIR WALTER SCOTT and RUDYARD KIPLING.

Person recorded: Jack Murrell

411: On the scattering of neighbours in the district, affirms there would have been MANAGERS (and workers) at MARAROA STATION. Also mentions the MACDONALDS at THE PLAINS STATION (from the late 1800s).

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001: Describes a photograph (not in accompanying file) of OLD BOB sitting on a box outside the TAKITIMO HOTEL (also recalls an old postmark for MANIPORI prior to proper MAORI spelling being used) sporting a BILLYCOCK hat with a 17-year-old YOUNG BOB lying on the ground nearby.

034: Considers that MARGARET SCOTT would also have been sent to boarding school in INVERCARGILL. Adds that she was sent to live in homes around the district to learn domestic skills, such as crocheting and bookkeeping. This, he says, would also have introduced her to the social life of the district.

050: Mentions that in the records of the LYNWOOD (formerly TE ANAU LAKES) STATION, (first leased and occupied by the HANKINSONS from 1858) it had five successive HOMESTEADS. Two of them, he says, were on the UPUKERORA RIVER, followed by two in the LYNWOOD BUSH beside what is now the LYNWOOD CEMETERY and finally the last one, built by the DORE FAMILY (as contractors), which is still standing close to the state highway.

072: Returning to the social life of the district in the late 1800s, replies that OLD BOB would have occasionally met the other RUNHOLDERS, for example if they dropped into the HOTEL for a drink or submitted an order for liquor, such as port.

084: Adds that each household would have included a ladies maid and a cook. The latter, he says, would have required skills in preparing a half-sheep’s carcass and maintaining a “pickle barrel”.

114: Comments that YOUNG BOB would not have been at school for long and back at home, he would have been keen to go and collect the mail each week so that he could see MARGARET. Says he would have taken a variety of routes and therefore explored the hill country.

127: Says on one occasion YOUNG BOB and ALEC were sent by horse and trap down to the railhead at LUMSDEN to pick up another load of beer. They returned, he says, two days earlier than expected because they knew they could get the horse and wagon up the GORGE CREEK and over the GORGE HILL (the present road from MOSSBURN to TE ANAU). So, he continues, they had taken the first wheeled vehicle over that route.

136: In order to do so, he says, they had to unload the wagon twice for the horse to be able to haul up a bank out of a creek. They would have to have carted the beer kegs across the river and load them back onto the wagon. Laughs that this new route saved them two days travelling time.

144: Comments that in those days it was better to just go ahead and do something rather than talk about it. “Shut up and do it (laughs).”

161: Goes on to say that YOUNG BOB had guided some SOUTH AFRICAN visitors up EXCELSIOR PEAK.

165: However, he says, this was not YOUNG BOB’S first experience in dealing with tourists and qualifies this by saying that people would have travelled past the HOTEL by coach on their way up the WAIAU BASIN to QUEENSTOWN. The MURRELLS would have provided refreshments and changed the horses at the TAKITIMO.

174: Relates a story in connection with some recent visitors at GRAND VIEW HOUSE whose ancestors attended OTAGO BOYS HIGH SCHOOL in DUNEDIN and had spent a vacation in the MANAPOURI district. The story involved the five schoolboys hiring a dinghy, enjoying the TAKITIMO HOTEL’S hospitality and OLD BOB’S pragmatic attitude as proprietor.

184: To add to the story, OLD BOB had had a poem posted at the entrance to the HOTEL and for years JACK had thought it ran to only four lines. However, it turns out there were another two lines.

192: Declares it was a wonderful experience to have this highly literary account of those earlier days which he had previously not known about published in a school magazine.

197: In addition, he says, the boys may not have met the DORES but they did meet RICHARD HENRY, twice. Says they also met government officers who were transporting 240 FERRETS that they were going to release in the FIORDLAND forest (in the days before the NATIONAL PARK was created) and around MANAPOURI in an effort to rid the district of RABBITS.

207: Replies that on leaving school, YOUNG BOB, returned home where he was needed to help with the general duties of running the HOTEL. Adds that OLD BOB was still the HEAD SHEPHERD at MANAPOURI STATION. He later added that while mustering, OLD BOB took the top beat across the face of the TAKITIMU MOUNTAINS on a white horse so that he could be easily seen by his assistants below.

217: States SHEARING was an intensive labour. Recalls his own experiences as a boy in the SHEARING SHED at BURWOOD STATION when there were eight SHEARERS on the board. This, he says, was at a time when SHEARING was done once a year.

227: Says his job was to help “skirt” the fleeces while the rousabouts ran around collecting the fleeces and gathering the “dags”. The wool-classer, he adds, would rate each fleece. Recalls it was a family affair with the women doing the cooking which consisted of two roasted sheep a day. “You’d get five chops for breakfast.”

246: Says the STATION maintained a long-boat for river crossing which they kept in the bracken, halfway along FRASERS BEACH, MANAPOURI. However, the vessel was eventually destroyed by fire. He later corrected himself by stating that if visitors wanted to take in more of the lake views, YOUNG BOB would take them to FRASERS BEACH, where they would climb up (on the dray) and get an excellent view of the islands.

254: Participant suddenly gets up from his chair causing the microphone to dislodge and the tape is stopped briefly. He collects a book Man of Roses by T R Burnett, which contains a photograph of OLD BOB acting as GUIDE.

266: Says the book describes how OLD BOB brought some visitors to the corner of the LAKE which looks across to VIEW HILL (site of the TRIG STATION). Says between it and the road there’s a pond which used to be the SHEEPWASH for MANAPOURI STATION.

273: Says OLD BOB set up a camp for the visitors there and one of them took the said photograph.

290: On the question of an embryonic TOURISM industry forming in the area (late 1880s) says the government’s TOURISM DEPARTMENT had already put its own steamer on the LAKE, the TITIROA (points to painting of it on the wall). Adds that in 1885 the government contracted the DORE COACH COMPANY to run it.

308: Reaffirms that MARGARET SCOTT was the daughter of the family friend and former partner, JAMES SCOTT. Says he found a record of the marriage in INVERCARGILL of YOUNG BOB and MARGARET in 1885. Considers that their marriage was almost inevitable because of their family and neighbourhood connections.

344: States the newlyweds lived at the HOTEL where MAGGIE would have done the housekeeping as YOUNG BOB carried on doing his chores. Person recorded: Jack Murrell

347: Mentions JIM DORE again, describing him as progressive with lots of initiative. This leads to him saying that DORE warned the government that the launch business was not going well and had said there was no possibility of DORE’S business and the government launch prospering without traveller accommodation being made available in MANAPOURI.

354: The upshot of this correspondence, he says, was that the SCOTTS and MURRELLS were approached by the government and YOUNG BOB and MAGGIE were asked to build what eventually became GRAND VIEW HOUSE. Says the two families put up some money which was augmented by government funds (consisting of the interest on a ₤300 loan to build the house). He later wrote that the original name of VIEW HOUSE was changed when the TOURIST DEPARTMENT asked all its HOTELS to become “GRAND”. For example, at ROTORUA, the HYDRO became the HYDRO GRAND.

361: Says the materials were contained in at least one bullock wagon. Goes on to say that it was MAGGIE as well as the DORES who decided where the house was to be built on the more elevated site, away from the riverbank and therefore away from mosquitoes and sandflies.

371: Microphone falls out of place.

385: Recalls that when he was doing some renovations to the front of the house, the piles had rotted. Adds they’d used local kowhai timber which he says “can’t stand being near soil. The “bearers” of the first room, NO 1 at the front, he continues, are different to the rest but he explains that in the late 1800s, a one-room shelter had to be built as a priority to keep flour, tea and gunpowder dry.

394: While renovating the floor, he says, he found piles of old wrappers for shaving blades, camera film, and cigarettes etc., which people would have thrown under the house. In addition, he also found mummified tussocks.

402: Interview closes.

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A second interview was conducted on 01 SEPTEMBER 2004 also at GRAND VIEW HOUSE.

002: Opens saying that four of his ancestors are buried in the first grave at the entrance to the LUMSDEN CEMETERY. He also added that his UNCLE JACK, buried in FRANCE, is memorialised at LUMSDEN.

031: Mentions his SISTER (MARGARET) traced some old BLUFF PORT records showing the date on which OLD BOB MURRELL arrived back from collecting his wife in AUSTRALIA.

041: Repeats an earlier comment that OLD BOB bought the accommodation house at STAG CREEK, dismantled it and transported it to BOB’S CORNER.

060: Some repetition follows regarding OLD BOB’S position as MANAGER of MANAPOURI STATION, that he lived with his WIFE, LIZZIE at BALLOON LOOP and that YOUNG BOB was brought up there.

080: States that YOUNG BOB’S earliest childhood memory was riding across the flats from the GORGE HILL to the HOMESTEAD on the front of the saddle with his FATHER, OLD BOB.

128: Any gardening, he says would have been for necessity not aesthetics with the exception that LIZZIE probably brought flower seeds and the root of at least one treasured rose.

151: Replies that it was standard practise for a daily journal to be kept as a means of recording costs and work done on the SHEEP STATIONS. However, he doesn’t know where the journals for MANAPOURI STATION would be now, whether they’ve been kept in whole or part, or discarded.

158: States there had been an interesting problem declaring the number of SHEEP that each STATION had; it was in connection with taxation, he thinks. Therefore, he is sceptical about some of the records on SHEEP numbers at that time (1870s).

179: Repeats earlier comments about YOUNG BOB’S education at the school by the ROMAN CATHOLIC BASILICA in INVERCARGILL.

208: Asked again what YOUNG BOB did on leaving school, this time he says “a vast number of jobs”. Goes on to say that RICHARD HENRY was odd-jobbing while living at TE ANAU. His hut, he says, was near the (present-day) GOLF CLUB (on the lakefront).

214: Describes HENRY as “seriously dysfunctional”: his mother had died on the journey from IRELAND to AUSTRALIA, his father had remarried and he was one of several children. Adds that HENRY was prone to “terrible bouts of depression” and lived a “very lonely life” at the same time as he became a “superb naturalist”.

221: Continues his comments on HENRY saying he’d made his own boats and worked on the SHEEP STATIONS in the district. The rest of the time, he says, HENRY “freelanced” catching KAKAPO and KIWIS to sell the skins to museums around the world. “In those days it was thought to be the thing to do.”

227: Again says HENRY was an excellent naturalist so it was appropriate for the government, when it wanted to appoint its first ranger, to find the best trapper. Says YOUNG BOB went trapping with HENRY and they shot the UPPER WAIAU together in a dinghy full of willow cuttings which they planted all round the riverbank at SHALLOW BAY and on the island BANCRANA. He later commented that it was also known as MIDWINTER because for the rest of the year it blends with the background and cannot be seen from the township. A photograph by BURTON BROS, labelled MIDWINTER was displayed in an exhibition as “no record of this name in MANAPOURI”.

238: However, in more recent times, he says an “earnest ranger” spent quite a lot of money and time poisoning and cutting and burning all the willows there to restore the island to its natural appearance. But, he adds, they ignored the fact that these were HISTORIC trees.

248: Describes how HENRY and YOUNG BOB camped at LITTLE BEACH on the MAHARA ISLANDS in HOPE ARM. Says YOUNG BOB found a willow twig in the bow of the boat, so he planted it in some silt between rocks “and it was there when I was a LAUNCHMASTER”, in the 1960s.

258: To a question on how the two men would have met, he says everyone in the district knew everyone else. As an example, he says, when the SHEEP MUSTERING took place at TE ANAU DOWNS STATION, they would have needed every person available.

261: Even today, he says, the said STATION may require mustering over a difficult area (and therefore call in extra workers).

268: Interrupts his flow of thought saying that in the 1870s there was nothing at the present TE ANAU town site which, he adds, post-dates MANAPOURI “by a long way”. And he queries the decision to base the centennial anniversary of TE ANAU on the date that HENRY is believed to have built his hut by the lake (1883).

276: States YOUNG BOB and HENRY were working together on the UPUKERORA FLAT to the northwest of TE ANAU. Says that was where the kaik of the MARAE KURA stood and in the late 1880s, the carved gable boards of the abandoned settlement were still standing. He later added that these were probably the remains of the whare (dwelling house) or pataka (a raised food storeroom).

286: Continues that during a burnoff of the terrain, the two men tore the boards off and laid them face down on the ground then ran for their lives. Says that at a later date, the boards went to DR SKINNER, the curator of the OTAGO MUSEUM. However, he adds, all record of them has since been lost.

315: Talks about the two men taking bird skins to LUMSDEN, a journey of about 50 miles over mud tracks. Says the roads into TE ANAU weren’t formed and gravelled before 1928 – during the DEPRESSION.

340: Replies that HENRY suffered from mood swings and mentions the book written about the naturalist entitled HENRY of RESOLUTION ISLAND by JOHN and SUSANNE HILL.

371: Again states HENRY was known to be a “very good naturalist” adding that the behaviour of the KAKAPO is quite distinct; complicated and peculiar. Says he heard one, in its natural environment, while climbing MITRE PEAK (at MILFORD SOUND) in 1964 and 1965. “The boom is quite remarkable.”

394: Returning to YOUNG BOB’S earlier working life, says he would have helped with fencing, building, and pit-sawing.

400: As an aside, explains the derivation of WHARE CREEK, saying that a small whare (hut) was put up on one side of the creek which was equidistant between two hotels and if people had reached that point, they would have some shelter while waiting a flooded creek to abate.

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Tape 3 Side A starts

002: Opens saying YOUNG BOB and ALEC were taught to play the violin by the STATION cook, known as “the lovely SHAW”.

031: Mentions there had been an HOTEL near the CENTRE HILL STATION and that on their way home from their wedding, YOUNG BOB and MAGGIE stopped there. But apparently, he says, it was so grubby that YOUNG BOB folded his coat over his pillow for his wife.

047: Discussion refers to YOUNG BOB working on MANAPOURI STATION for a while. The interviewer asks who would have owned the lease at that time, however, the response is somewhat muddied and the interviewer’s own advocacy-style comments are incorrect as to the change of ownership of the STATION during the late 1800s.

079: States that despite the ownership changes, in the same way as a factory is run even when it changes hands, a reliable working team was necessary to maintain the everyday running of these SHEEP STATIONS.

125: However, he says, they’ve since been sold by auction to private buyers.

133: In reply to the next question, says that in those days and during his own upbringing, it was important to be self-reliant with an ability to do everything and he offers some examples of this.

177: Referring back to YOUNG BOB and MAGGIE, says she would have been keeping house at the TAKITIMO HOTEL as well as looking after the growing family (they eventually had eight children).

185: Mentions that LIZZIE MURRELL died at a relatively young age in great pain and was administered large amounts of laudanum during her last days. Also mentions his UNCLE LES died of an unknown, painful illness of the liver and that his BROTHER (BURTON) died of cancer of the liver.

226: Repeats an earlier statement saying the government’s TOURISM DEPARTMENT had put a steamer, the TITIROA, on LAKE MANAPOURI and contracted JIM DORE (who had a passenger coach company) and his nephew, JBC DORE, to run it.

236: Says they built a hut (in front of the present GLADE CAMP) and the coach road, which is now a walking track to the main highway and they could take the horses and vehicles down to the river and wash them at the HORSE FORD.

247: Mentions that three miles downriver is a small SHEEP STATION called DUNCRAIGEN and the MANAGER at that time was KENNETT. Says he was appointed as the steamer’s engineer and that he lived in a hut by the river at Section 12, BLK IX, town of MANAPOURI. He later noted that titles at TE ANAU (when that township was mapped out) were listed in the MANAPOURI SURVEY DISTRICT which led to some errors and confusion. This has been further muddled recently by the area name being altered, he said.

257: States its roof consisted of flattened 4-gallon KENNET’S (kerosene) tins.

267: Explains the government put the TITIROA steamer on the LAKE in a bid to gather revenue from TOURISM, adding that at that time the publicity presented MANAPOURI as the most beautiful LAKE in NEW ZEALAND (possibly the WORLD),

277: Mentions OLD BOB being quite dismissive of the government venture.

Tape stopped for a wander outdoors to view the LAKE from the GUESTHOUSE garden.

280: Repeats an earlier statement that DORE had told government representatives that the steamer would not be a success unless accommodation was provided in MANAPOURI which led to the establishment of GRAND VIEW HOUSE under the stewardship of YOUNG BOB and MAGGIE.

293: States that since it took its first guests in 1889, the GUESTHOUSE has been open to tourists 365 days a year ever since, thus abiding by the original contract.

301: He also repeats information already given about the subsidy put up by the government to help towards the cost of building the premises.

311: Microphone rumble due to its dislodgement

314: Talks about the SCOBIE family which lived on the FREESTONE HILL STATION and also owned a part of MANAPOURI STATION, from the UPPER WAIAU to the WHITESTONE RIVER and down the MARAROA RIVER to the WAIAU.

325: Says MR SCOBIE was a widower with several children and his eldest daughter looked after them. Says she eventually married JACK DORE, aka JBC DORE.

330: Thinks the two families (SCOBIE & MURRELL) would have paid for a schoolteacher who would probably have lived-in. The teaching level, he suggests, would have been the instruction of the three ‘R’s.

340: Lists the children born to YOUNG BOB and MAGGIE: JACK (JOHN ROBERT), GRAHAM, EVA, LESLIE ALEXANDER, BURTON, NORMAN, STANLEY and GUY who was born on NOVEMBER 5, 1900. Says they were all born at the “lying-in” house at CASTLEROCK. Later mentioned that a ninth child, RAYMOND, was registered.

355: As to household help, says there would have been at least one hired girl to help look after the children, do some of the cooking and clean the house. Mentions his MOTHER (ALICE) arriving in NEW ZEALAND under a sponsorship scheme in which she did household work for a family outside GORE (more precisely for the MACGIBBONS of BURNLEY at MCNAB)

392: As to the children’s further education, says GRAHAM was sent off to work on a FARM near CASTLEROCK at the age of eleven, which was considered normal in those days. LESLIE, he thinks, probably stayed at MANAPOURI.

401: Mentions that the governess, being hired by both families, would have spent half the year at GRAND VIEW, the other half at the FREESTONE.

409: Says there was a schoolhouse near the GUESTHOUSE and recalls the site had been made into a flower garden when he was child. Noted later that the building materials used for the schoolhouse were recycled to make the present-day back porch.

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Tape 3 Side B starts

001: Opens with discussion about the purchase by the CROWN of the MURIHIKU area land from the local MAORI. Says one condition of the sale was that all MAORI children were to be provided with free education.

017: Goes on to say that the MAORI chiefs at that time could see that future prosperity came with an education and being able to speak ENGLISH. Adds that while grievances are aired nowadays about the punishment doled out to MAORI who spoke their own language at school, it was under the order of their own leaders, he says, that the situation evolved.

036: States his FATHER, BURTON, was sent to INVERCARGILL to take up an apprenticeship at CRAIG’S PRINTING at the age of twelve.

051: Mentions BURTON was always regarded (in the family) as a sickly child and that EVA had to look after him a great deal.

062: Says BURTON also worked at KINGSLAND’S BISCUIT FACTORY, a place the participant recalls visiting at the age of five when he was sent along with sixpence to buy reject broken biscuits.

072: Affirms that his FATHER, BURTON, would have boarded with a family in INVERCARGILL and that often those types of connections evolved into generations of family friends. As an example, he talks about the MURRELLS links with the BEADLE family, one of whom is the NEW ZEALAND artist, PETER BEADLE, of QUEENSTOWN.

091: It transpired, however, that BURTON contracted a heat rash while working at the FACTORY and for health reasons was sent back home to MANAPOURI, where he would have been given general duties around the house.

101: “Essentially, he washed the dishes here all his life. He said…the only way he could be absolutely sure that everything is properly clean is to wash it yourself. And he did.”

126: Referring to their expert knowledge of the FIORDLAND terrain held by both YOUNG BOB and later his FATHER, BURTON, says the latter’s was based on listening to others and never forgetting the details. Gives an example of this from personal experience of climbing the mountains across the river.

152: As to his GRANDFATHER, he mentions SIR THOMAS MACKENZIE, MP for CLUTHA (which included MANAPOURI district) and his interest in the area. Says the government wanted to establish a port on the WEST COAST in order to reduce travelling times between NEW ZEALAND and AUSTRALIA by one day.

166: States MACKENZIE led an expedition up the SPEY RIVER (which runs into WEST ARM) with a group that included YOUNG BOB as the “paid GUIDE”.

177: Continues that when the group reached the headwaters of the SPEY, each of them could look down the SEAFORTH that runs down to DUSKY SOUND. So this expedition resulted in the naming of the MACKENZIE PASS, MURRELL PASS and PILLANS PASS.

194: Says the recommended walking track was over PILLANS PASS to the southeast of MACKENZIE PASS.

202: About the WILMOT PASS, he says the story goes back to when YOUNG BOB lived at MANAPOURI STATION. Mentions MAINWARING-BROWN, a PROFESSOR of BOTANY, and two colleagues from DUNEDIN, who as part of their exploration of the area would have borrowed the STATION’S boat.

210: Says they rowed up the LAKE and camped on FAIRY BEACH, then rowed to the head of WEST ARM and walked up the SPEY, took the first river to the right (the MICA BURN), climbed uphill and set up camp. That night, he continues, it snowed so they stayed under shelter even though it was high summer.

225: Says MAINWAIRING-BROWN apparently got bored and went off never to be seen again, despite the efforts of the other two who spent a day looking for him and then bolted back to the HOTEL where they reported the PROFESSOR’S disappearance.

238: Comments that all of the MURRELLS (himself included) were excellent TRACKERS, so YOUNG BOB accompanied by JOHN BARBER (who’d been GOLD panning at the mouth of the MARAROA RIVER) set off on a SEARCH & RESCUE mission.

262: Says they rowed up the LAKE and found signs of the campsite at FERRY BEACH and reported that signs showed only two people (not three) had travelled up the MICA BURN. Says they followed the tracks up to the tops and while there looked down on DEEP COVE, DOUBTFUL SOUND and realised the PROFESSOR would not have been able to distinguish the water from MANAPOURI and therefore they would have to go downhill to search. [As an aside, he wrote that when FOWLER made his notable exploration up the FREEMAN BURN from the NORTH ARM of LAKE MANAPOURI, he arrived at what is now FOWLER’S PASS. This gives way to the SOUTH FIORD of LAKE TE ANAU and also GAER ARM, DOUBTFUL SOUND. As FOWLER’S party sat looking at a sheet of water down to the northeast, they knew it might be TE ANAU but could also be any tarn or small lake. Imagine their delight, suggested the participant, when the TAWERA steamed into view, proving it was indeed LAKE TE ANAU. As a further aside, he said it was FOWLER who discovered a variety of alpine plant which he named “MURRELLII”]

278: So, he says, they climbed down to DEEP COVE checking for footprints. He says they saw the PASS (WILMOT) and came back that way.

290: Replies that MT BARBER, named after the goldminer, stands alongside the PASS but adds that much later on, when WILMOT was sent by the government to survey for a through-route, he named MT WILMOT and the PASS after himself.

297: Adds there was already a MURRELLS PASS (south of MACKENZIE PASS). He also says that when WILMOT arrived at MANAPOURI to conduct the survey, YOUNG BOB only advised him which route to take – he didn’t physically act as GUIDE.

310: Ends this tale saying that it is recorded, however, that YOUNG BOB made the first three crossings of WILMOT PASS.

324: States that not long after the survey was carried out, the government offered the contract for the track to be cut – 12 miles long and 10ft wide – in 1899-90.

334: Explains that YOUNG BOB and JIM DORE took up the contract. When it reached about halfway, he says, YOUNG BOB slipped and slashed his hand and was unable to continue. He later added that they employed four men, including COLOUR-SERGEANT PATTERSON of the BOER WAR who his FATHER, BURTON, remembered as having “frighteningly pale blue eyes”.

345: Arriving on the scene was the COLLECTOR of CUSTOMS, named CHAMBERLAIN who, he says, at the halfway camp admired the falls and named them after his home and garden in DUNEDIN – CLEVE GARTH FALLS. Later he commented that CHAMBERLAIN as the CHIEF GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL for OTAGO-SOUTHLAND (which pre-1870 had been administered as the one province of OTAGO) and would have certified payment for the contract. YOUNG BOB, he said, GUIDED the official all the way to DEEP COVE.

357: Mentions that the government steamer dropped off the materials for a mariner’s refuge at the foot of the HELENA FALLS and that DORE had the contract to build it. Says they decided to construct it above the high tide mark on the bank of the LYVIA RIVER on the sunny side. (This was the first HUT to be built on DOUBTFUL SOUND). A long-boat under a tin roof shelter was also provided.

376: Comments that apart from the lighthouse at PUYSEGUR POINT and the small settlement at MILFORD SOUND, this would have been the only other refuge area for shipwrecked mariners and that in a sense the MURRELLS and the DORES were its caretakers.

378: States that crayfishing on the FIORDS was not practised then and in fact wasn’t carried out till the 1950s. “I rowed down the FIORD when I was 15 and the four of us were the only people between PUYSEGUR POINT and MILFORD SOUND….Looking back now, what a fantastic adventure for a boy of 15 (laughs).”

Interview session closes slightly before tape runs out

Tape 3 Side B stops

[Abstract of interview continues with Part 2]