A River Rules My Life

By Mona Anderson

The original and all-time classic of high-country station life in New Zealand
Mount Algidus, the author's home, was one of the great high-country sheep stations of Canterbury, New Zealand. It occupied a mountain range between two ice rivers and lay in the very shadow of the Southern Alps.

Published with the Mona Anderson estate as a beautiful hard-back, this new edition brings back the isolated world of the Wilberforce, the river that governed Mona's life for 33 years. In the early 1940s Algidus was regarded as some of the wildest, roughest farming land in New Zealand.

'The river was my Rubicon', Mona said. 'I had heard stories about the terrible Wilberforce: so many people had been drowned in it. I tried not to think about the time when I could have to cross it. But the road had come to an end at a corrugated iron shed. Somewhere beyond it I knew we would find the station, Mount Algidus, a green, high-country oasis amid the snow and the tussock...'

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Oct 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781775491453

Mona Anderson

Mona Anderson grew up in the Bronx and then when her father won some money, they moved to the suburbs of New Jersey. They sent her to the best schools and encouraged her to follow her dreams. She had always loved writing so she was encouraged to work on improving it. When she went off to college on a scholarship, she took some writing courses for extra credits. She majored in psychology and found those courses useful when she had to write her thesis. She graduated and went back to her hometown to work in the local hospital. In her spare time she did what she loved, wrote. All her stories are based on others life experiences and she always has a happy ending. Her aim is to get readers to believe that out of everything bad that can happen, something great will also happen.

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THE MAP

[The map and the following description are faithful to the original edition.]

Mount Algidus Station comprised, until recently, almost the complete area of country occupied by the Rolleston Range and bounded by the Wilberforce (centre of map) and Mathias Rivers (left). Its north-west boundary is the Main Divide of the Southern Alps and its south-west corner post the junction of the Rakaia and Wilberforce Rivers (just off the foot of the map). Within latter years an area between Browning Pass and the Unknown Stream has been taken over by the New Zealand Forest Service.

The Mount Algidus homestead and its out-buildings are situated on the banks of the Wilberforce River, at the foot of the bush-clad mountain after which the station is named.

Mt Algidus, which is 4,607 feet high, is not identified on the map.

The road into the station used to cross the Wilberforce just above its junction with the Rakaia and for seven miles skirted Woolshed Hill to the homestead. A new route follows the Wilberforce a further six miles along the foot of Mt Oakden and crosses directly over to the homestead.

The Moa Basins, renowned deer-stalking country, are included in the area taken over by the New Zealand Forest Service. Each summer Government deer cullers, camped in lonely back huts, shoot the high rugged country between the Moa Stream and Browning Pass.

27,000 acres of bush on the station are in State Forest Reserves. The trees are mainly beech, totara, matai, and broadleaf.

The rivers which are shown here as neat black lines are, in reality, wide riverbeds that can contain a dozen meandering channels or the full extent of a river in flood.

The huts shown on the map are all in current use.

Mount Oakden Station. Across the Wilberforce River and seven miles down the new road, the Robertsons at Mount Oakden homestead are the nearest neighbours to Mount Algidus.

Glenthorne Station, to the north-east of Mount Algidus homestead, occupies the country on either side of the Birdwood Range and down to Lake Coleridge.

Lake Coleridge. A powerhouse (not shown) on the Rakaia River is fed by this twelve-mile-long lake. The two lines (on map) leading into the lake are (right) the diversion from the Harper River that supplies eighty per cent of the outflow and (left) the overflow outlet when the lake is full.

Manuka Peak (bottom left), 5,521 feet, gives its name to Manuka Point Station (not shown) which lies in the forks of the Mathias and Rakaia Rivers. The homestead is about ten miles west of Mount Algidus.

(This map of Mount Algidus and of country adjacent to the Mathias, Wilberforce, and Harper Rivers, was drawn by Cliff. Holdsworth to accompany a model made by the late H. H. Walker, and is reproduced by courtesy of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club.)

DEDICATION

Dedicated to Ron

some of whose forbearance

is recorded in these pages

and

to our friends and neighbours

of the High Country

NOTE

In the pages that follow the full spelling of Mount Algidus refers to the station; where the mountain itself is mentioned the abbreviation has been used: Mt Algidus.

CONTENTS

The Map

Dedication

Illustrations: Sources

PART ONE

1  Welcome to the Station, Missus

2  Go and See Jack

3  The Missus Settles In

4  You Must Have a Cat

5  Spring

6  The Home Front

7  Jimmy the One

8  Station Horses

9  A Christmas Carol

10  Feeding the Gang

11  Visitors

12  The Village Smithy Sits

13  Cooks and Cookaroos

PART TWO

14  Autumn Muster

15  I Hate Winter

16  The Black Year

17  Old and New Roads

18  Scotch, Dutch or Colonial

19  Over

20  Change Down

21  Oodles of Spare Time

22  Nearly a Widder

23  Over the River

Photos Section

Copyright

ILLUSTRATIONS: SOURCES

Walter Baynon – 19 (loading merino rams)

Bill Beattie, Weekly News – 10 (drafting sheep at the homestead station); 12 (the drafting yards, Mount Algidus); 13 (Ron Anderson eye-clipping merinos); 14 (washout at Saddle Gully); 15 (the road rebuilt); 17 (the G.M.C. crossing the Wilberforce River); 29 (mustering in a high wind); 33 (off to see the vet); 43 (the view from Saddle Gully); 46 (view from the homestead)

Selwyn Chamberlain – 22 (mustering out in the Moa Basin); 23 (musterers and dogs on the high tops); 45 (the waggon team)

Department of Lands and Survey – 1 (aerial view of Mount Algidus Station and its setting)

Peter Maling – 27 (more-rain hut on the Rolleston Range)

R. Mason – 2 (Mount Algidus Station and its surroundings from Mt Oakden)

Charles Norkane – 35 (picnic in the cook-house)

Ted Porter – 11 (Shirley Porter helps with muster); 18 (getting the sheep across the Wilberforce); 31 (the station blacksmith at work); 42 (Tiger Moth landing at the station airstrip)

J. T. Salmon – 7 (the wool waggon goes to town)

Joff Thomson – 6 (building the new homestead)

Bruce Tinnock – 25 (freeing snowbound sheep); 28 (inside one of the mustering huts)

Bill West – 3 (the Wilberforce River and part of the Mount Algidus run); 5 (the present Mount Algidus homestead); 8 (crossing the Wilberforce); 9 (bringing in supplies); 20 (a musterer and dogs on Big Goat Hill); 21 (the station yards at shearing time); 24 (musterers and dogs on the high tops); 26 (freeing snowbound sheep)

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

Welcome to the Station, Missus

The river was my Rubicon. I had heard stories about the terrible Wilberforce: so many people had been drowned in it. I tried not to think about the time when I would have to cross it. But the road had come to an end at a corrugated iron shed. Somewhere beyond it I knew we would find the station, Mount Algidus, a green, high-country oasis amid the snow and the tussock. There I could see myself leading a life of leisure. Perhaps I would ride round the sheep once in a while, with Ron, my tall, fair husband, solicitous by my side — Darling, are you sure you’re not tired? Meanwhile there was the river. This was the end of the road from the city. Here you either went on or you turned back.

I stood where I was, gazing at the waggon which was already waiting. It was a huge, clumsy old conveyance drawn by five great draught-horses, standing now with their faces hidden in nosebags. It looked enormously substantial — and enormously forbidding. Ron and the teamster, whom he had introduced as Jim, stacked the last of my treasures and wedding presents aboard the monster. Vera, who had come this far with us, stood in cousinly silence by my side.

That thing, I said, must have come straight from the ark.

It’s got two sets of wheels, said Vera thoughtfully.

Two sets of jolts too, I’ll bet. Heaven help my wedding presents when it goes over a bump.

I wonder, mused Vera, how he manages to stay put in that driver’s seat. It’s perched half a mile up in the air.

"I’m wondering how I’m going to stay put, perched on top of all that gear!"

Jim removed the nosebags from the faces of his team, and lifting each shaft a little he kicked the prop from under and fastened it to the shaft. He had looked surprised to see Ron and me back from our honeymoon so soon but now he turned to me and said in a kindly way, Are you ready now? We’ve a long road ahead of us.

Vera kissed me goodbye, then looked at the desolate riverbed, strewn with boulders the river bore with it down from the mountains, and at the rocky isolation stretching away on the far side.

Mona, she said, in a frightened voice, will I ever see you again? It was more a prayer than a question.

Don’t be silly, I babbled at her in nervous excitement. If this old crate gets me there safely, surely to goodness it can bring me back again.

I clambered on to the waggon and found myself a perch on top of the furniture, where I sat clutching a precious vase Mother had given me and a large piece of wedding cake I had brought for the men on the station. I felt as if a lurch or the least puff of wind could bring me tumbling down. Ron heaved himself up and sat near the front. Jim climbed to his high seat, took hold of miles of leather ribbons, released the brake and called to the horses.

Now then Louie — Jess — Happy, come on! And none of your shenanigans!

The draughts lumbered forward, the waggon lurched alarmingly, nearly upsetting my balance, and we set off. At first we rumbled along a track on what I still thought of as my side of the river. As we approached a small bridge the leaders pretended to shy, pushing against one another with a rattling of chains and a creaking of harness.

Now, now! Jim called to them. Be jeepers, you’ve been over this bridge hundreds of times and no fox has jumped out at you yet! Then as we crossed the culvert he wheeled the team a little to the right and added, Whist now, let’s get over this river. I clutched my vase and my piece of wedding cake a little more tightly and hung on.

We crossed at a point where two rivers met — a mile-long traverse over rock, boulders and sand. Now the waggon stumbled forward into old watercourses and laboured up the other side. We creaked and crawled, then lurched forward again. I began to wonder when we would come to the river.

On a strip of sand to the right I watched a lonely brown and black bird limping patiently about. What’s that bird? I called to Ron.

A paradise drake, he said.

It’s lame.

Yes, probably been caught in a rabbit trap. He pointed to a matagouri flat ahead and to the right of us. There’s a rabbitter camped over there.

Halfway across the riverbed I saw it, the dreaded Wilberforce. It was split into two streams, each about fifty yards wide. I had hardly time to wonder how deep they would be before the leaders pulled down into the first of them and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the water barely came up to their knees.

The waters of the Wilberforce were locked up for the winter in the heavy matrices of snow and ice that rested on the mountains. Months later I was to see it with the spring thaw on its back — brown, ugly and raging, a killer river that no man in his senses would cross. Now it was a gentle murmuring stream.

On the other side the road climbed gradually uphill in a series of twists and bends, following the course of the Rakaia above where it forked with the Wilberforce. There was a primitive beauty in this country. Everywhere I looked there were glistening, snow-covered mountains rising at angles not quite credible to eyes more used to the plains. Their whiteness was harshly slashed here and there by rivers which wound round their feet and seemed to slither through deep gorges as if the steep rock might try to deny them passage. A wild, unfettered quality in my surroundings combined with my excitement about a new and different life to sharpen my vision and perceptions.

As the waggon grumbled its way slowly nearer the mountains, the sun dipped behind their jagged outlines and dark shadows blotted the lower hills. The cold, which I had hardly noticed before, became intense. After its passage across the Southern Alps the wind breathed ice on us. My cheeks blenched from it, and I realised I was losing consciousness of my feet.

Is it far now? I asked.

Old Jim cracked his whip and the horses stepped out smartly for a few chains, then dropped back to their steady plod. As we came to each corner I could see another one farther on. The bends seemed never-ending in their sameness, and though each opened up some new vista my enthusiasm subsided as the cold laid greater claims to my body.

Is it far now?

My life lately seemed to have been mainly a struggle to keep warm. Ron and I had been married in the little church at Whitecliffs on a wintry Saturday afternoon five days before. Someone had remembered that nobody had brought any confetti, so our guests had gone to the village store across from the church, bought up the entire stock of rice, and pelted us with it. Almost congealed with the cold, for the church had been unheated, the exercise of trying to dodge the onslaught had not been wholly unwelcome. The wedding feast and the good wishes of our friends and relations had warmed us further, and we’d set out for our honeymoon in Christchurch feeling more friendly towards the season and its winds. But when we arrived at our hotel, after a forty-two mile drive, I was again frozen to the marrow, and Ron, who had seemed so happy and full of assurance a few short hours before, had sat gloomily in the lounge with his pipe held firmly in his mouth, staring fixedly at the roses on the wallpaper.

The next day, a Sunday, the town had been as quiet and lifeless as a graveyard. We’d spent the day strolling the dim, foggy streets — window shopping. There was no fire at the hotel and walking the streets was a degree or two warmer than sitting in the dank cold of the lounge gazing at the wallpaper. The next morning dawned colder still, if that were possible. I’d looked out of the window at the bleak, damp street below and come to a sudden decision.

If this is honeymooning, I’d said to Ron, I’m sick of the sight of it!

By heaven, so am I! He’d sounded mightily relieved.

Before I had time to think any more about it we’d packed our bags, stowed them in the little brown coupé we called Dorothy, and were on our way to my parents’ house. We’d walked in about mid-morning, and now even though my face protested at such treatment in the icy, high-country wind, I smiled to remember the way my father had looked. I’d read his thoughts.

No, we’ve not had a quarrel already, I’d said. We’re just frozen to the bone! Why in the name of fortune we went honeymooning in the dead of winter beats me. I haven’t been warm since I left home.

It had been wonderful to sit by a huge fire in the warm kitchen at home while my mother fussed over us and made endless hot cups of coffee. But the next day we’d packed all our wedding presents and my treasures in preparation for the long drive to Mount Algidus. Or rather to the corrugated iron shed by the Wilberforce known as the iron store, which was as far as motor transport could go. We’d left early that morning — was it still the same day? — with fond farewells from my parents.

Don’t keep her on the station too long without a break, my father had said to Ron.

No, I’ll bring her home often.

I moved as much as I dared on my perch atop the waggon to discover whether the numbness in my legs was only the cold or if I was sitting on a nerve as well, and wondered if I’d have to wait till then to be warm again.

Hours later, it seemed, we reached the top of the foothill we had been steadily climbing. The view should have thrilled me, and Ron twisted round from his seat in the front to name its features — to the west the Rakaia and Mathias Gorges; along the north side the wild Wilberforce in its gorge. In the far distance to the west stood the lovely Arrowsmith Range with its high peak reaching above 9,000 feet. But I was too frozen and miserable to admire this rugged beauty, or even to hear much of what Ron was saying. All that could make me exclaim was another gelid attack by the wind. I had lost interest, and I could only wonder numbly, Is it far now? Oh, I wonder how much farther!

We had turned north now and the road was downhill. We had lost sight of the Rakaia and seemed to be following the Wilberforce. Then, in the bottom of the valley — at last! — buildings. A huge red-roofed woolshed presided over a maze of post-and-rail sheepyards and a number of smaller buildings which I later discovered to be shearers’ quarters. The road took a turn past these and there below me were more buildings and shelters, the largest shaped like a long letter L. I thought, This must be home, but old Jim interrupted my unspoken question by saying, That’s the cookhouse. The homestead’s out of sight. It’s in those trees right at the bottom.

In all the times I had imagined this moment I had leapt off the waggon and run into my new home brimming with excitement and exploring it helter-skelter. I had dashed from room to room exclaiming my delight and returning now and then to hug my proud new husband. In fact, I was so stiff and sore and frozen at the end of the long journey that the waggon pulled up in front of the cookhouse and the teamster had to lift me down and help me inside to thaw out.

The cookhouse had a huge double-oven stove. It was the largest stove I had ever seen and as I stepped stiffly through the door the warmth from it seemed to hit me in the face. An old man with high cheekbones, bright bird’s eyes and a white Santa Claus beard removed the watery stem of a pipe from his mouth with one hand, shook my numb hand with the other, and said: Welcome to the station, Missus. You’re the third bride Hi’ve seen come here.

This dear old man offered me a seat beside the stove and helped me to a plate of hot soup, but my hands seemed powerless and my thumb would not grip the spoon so he tipped the broth into an enamel pannikin. I clutched this with both hands and drank the contents gratefully. The soup was good and lost nothing in flavour from my need of it. After a while I began to thaw out.

The big stove was almost covered with pots and pans which filled the room with a most appetising smell, and while he’d been making me comfortable the old man had taken a quick look into one or two of them as he passed. Now he took a hammer, and going to the doorway where an old plough disc hung by a piece of wire from the eaves he gave several ringing blows which nearly frightened me out of my wits. The meal was ready for the men.

That’s the gong, Missus, he said. That’ll fetch ’em.

By this time the returning circulation had made my face begin to burn and I knew it was bright red. My hands and feet ached in the sudden warmth so that I wondered how I was going to keep back the tears. But as each station hand came in for his dinner Ron introduced me. So instead of crying I sat there with my face like a fiery red full moon, grinning till it felt stiff from the forced smiles, and answered the men’s questions. Had I enjoyed the trip in? Oh fine, thank you. Smiling sweetly and thinking, Mona you damned hypocrite, why don’t you let convention go to the devil and say, ‘It’s the worst damned trip I’ve ever had in my life. I’m bruised and I’m stiff and I’m sore and my hands are paining me and — you big fools can’t you see I’ve a lump in my throat the size of a football from trying not to cry?’ But instead, there I sat, saying Oh yes, fine thank you, and Yes, I’m sure I’ll love it here. In my heart I was not so sure.

Some of the men offered facetious advice; others asked considerately whether I had got off the waggon and walked some of the way to keep warm. These made me feel the most foolish of all because such a commonsense thought had not even entered my mind. Nobody else had suggested it either; perhaps they had thought the effort of getting me off the waggon and on to it again would have been too much.

It was quite dark when we left the cookhouse after dinner, so Ron fetched a torch to lead me down the hill to the homestead. As we reached the gate dogs began to bark, but I was reassured by a welcoming note in their barking.

I wonder if anyone gave the poor sods a run today, said Ron as he pushed the gate open for me.

Near the house an old dog came forward to meet us with a friendly whoof whoof, and immediately began sniffing my legs.

Does it bite? I asked, still not quite sure of my reception.

Who, Old Mac? Bite! He wouldn’t even bite one of his own fleas.

Ron sounded as pleased to see Mac as Mac evidently was to see him.

We stepped on to a small back porch from which three doors opened off. That’s the wash-house, said Ron, pointing with the beam of the torch, and that’s the toilet. He pushed the door open and shone the light on a flush toilet that would not have disgraced any suburban home.

Thank heaven for that, I said. I’d had visions of tramping some lonely path to an old dumpty and perching over a big hole full of spiders and wiggly things. Besides, I hate the dark.

The third door led into a small kitchen. Ron lit some candles and a lamp.

The door straight ahead leads to the hall, the bedrooms and the bathroom, he said. Go and have a look around while I light this stove.

But I was stuck to the spot, unable to take my eyes off the first thing I’d looked at. It was a strange, metal device attached to the stove. What a horrible looking thing, I thought, I’ll have that taken off first pop.

What’s that thing? I pointed.

A wood-burner, said Ron. With that you can put in pieces twice the length you could otherwise. You’ll find it a blessing in winter.

In winter! As if winter wasn’t already here! On second thoughts I might not have the contraption removed after all.

Jim and some other station hands had unloaded the waggon while we’d been in the cookhouse and pushed everything higgledy-piggledy into the hall and sitting room. There were heaps of boxes, chairs, rolls of linoleum, mattresses and carpets, with a corner of my piano protruding from a nest of pillows and rugs. The place looked like an auction room.

Looking at this forbidding heap of our worldly goods, my last shreds of energy and resolution left me.

It can wait till morning, I said. All I want is a bed.

But we looked in vain for a bed. Someone had hidden them. It was the standard honeymoon joke.

CHAPTER 2

Go and See Jack

The next day dawned somewhat stiffly for us. Ron had got a stretcher from somewhere and we’d slept on that in the kitchen. He declared that he had slept on the wooden edge while I had taken all the mattress. My own aches convinced me that the opposite was true. But breakfast improved relations, and anyway nothing could have stilled my desire to see my new home for the first time.

The original Mount Algidus homestead had been destroyed by fire only four years before and had been replaced by a modern bungalow on the same site. It would have been impossible to find one better. The house lay in a sheltered little basin and from the back door I looked out over the Wilberforce, still in one of its quieter moods, to Mt Oakden, a scarred mass of ancient rock 5,000 feet high. No less lovely in a quieter way was Mt Algidus itself, 4,600 feet and covered with dark green native bush. In the damp morning air they looked close and enormously tall so that I wondered if the sun would ever get over them. I wondered too if it really was me standing there under the mountains, and Vera’s words came back to mind — how would I ever get out?

Not far from the front of the house the native bush came to an end, merging with the acres of lovely old English trees planted by some earlier custodian of Mount Algidus, no doubt to remind him of home. On this winter morning the English trees were bare and somehow combined with the grandeur of the mountains and the sheer emptiness of the country to make me shiver and turn back inside to the fire.

The fire! It took me a long time to get used to wood fires. It seemed as if every time I turned my back the fire went out. The wood-burner needed handling too, but Ron was there to put things right, besides helping me to get things straight and arrange the furniture. It was great fun finding homes for all my treasures, and with Ron for company I began to feel that the place wasn’t so bad after all. Don’t get up, dear, Ron said each morning, so dear snuggled down in bed and purred like