own sweat, they carved out routes through South Westland wherever the government made money available for this work.
Those who experienced the single gravel roads which lay between Ross and Fox Glacier in earlier times, remember also the difficulty encountered on trips up to town whenever a service car or public works vehicle or timber lorry or school bus was encountered. Tensions were high as vehicles tried to find enough room to pass, not always successfully. There were no theatres in South Westland, the drama and tensions being played out in daily living on mountain passes with foreign-sounding names such as Mt Hercules.
Drivers learned the hard way how to protect the engine when water was likely to reach the engine including the disconnection of the fan belt. Children, unaccustomed to vehicle travel, suffered badly from car sickness due not only to the noise and fumes from overheated engines but also the twists and turns of gravelled mountain routes. Time out had to be taken on these journeys not only to let the engine cool when the water in the radiator boiled as it always did, but also to give sickly children time to spew. God forbid that we did this inside the car. Warnings couldn’t always be given at suitable places to stop on the narrow road. The lakes, Ianthe, Wahapo, and Mapourika, could not be seen from the narrow road, the dense foliage hiding their scenic beauty. Being stuck in the middle of a stream with feet up on the seat because water was flowing through the car filled us with terror.
Service cars in 1930s were the Studebaker, Hudson and Cadillac. Hari Hari was the half- way lunch stop. Drivers were known by name to everybody in district and would carry parcels or drop off articles at isolated farmhouses passed along the way without charge. When it was known that a household had a sick adult or child, cooked food or a batch of pikelets would be dropped off as a gift from one household to another. Newman Motors, Harcourts Motors and West Coast Motors all became household names running varied services during their years of operation. New Zealand Road
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