The Search for Sheep Runs

ONE of the primary factors in the exploration of the South Island was the search for sheep runs. As early as 1847 F. A. Weld’s Marlborough station, Flaxbourne, had been stocked with sheep. It was not till 1855 that the Canterbury Plains and their outer ranges had all been taken up by run-holders. In that year the scramble for new land began. The notorious Mackenzie and his efficient dog had stolen sheep from South Canterbury for ‘ sale’ in Otago, and the next step was the dis­covery of the Mackenzie Country by more reput­able sheepmen.

J. B. A. Acland, of Peel Forest, was active in the Rangitata Valley. He journeyed to the glaciers at the head of the river and disproved the Maori report that the Upper Rangitata came from a large plain. Acland’s fame was eclipsed by that of an arrival from Cambridge, an able young man who dabbled in art, music and sheep with about equal gusto. This Samuel Butler is best remembered as the author of the satire, Erewhon, which in its opening chapters gives vivid descriptions of the Rangitata-Rakaia watershed. With a surveyor, Baker, Butler searched for a pass over the Rangitata Divide in 1861, and stumbled on to a distant view of the Rakaia’s only low pass. When he visited it later he found that no good sheep country lay beyond, but a wilderness of gorges and jungle. However, he reported his discovery to the Provincial Gov­ernment which accepted the responsibility of find­ing the most feasible stock route to the West Coast.

Whitcombe and Louper crossed the pass, but Whitcombe was drowned in the Taramakau River. Louper struggled back to civilisation by way of the Harper Pass, and Butler’s share of the discovery was forgotten. In 1863 he sold his run in the Rangitata and returned to England.

Nor were the sheepmen of Otago less active. Nathaniel Chalmers was the first white man to reach Lakes Wanaka and Hawea and to see Lake Wakatipu. Run-seekers such as Rees and von Tunzelmann unwittingly eased the way for the gold prospectors.