A Short Time After I Got Up To The Rangitata, I Had Occasion To Go Down
Again To Christ Church, And Stayed There One Day.
On my return, with a
companion, we were delayed two days at the Rakaia:
A very heavy fresh
had come down, so as to render the river impassable even in the punt.
The punt can only work upon one stream; but in a heavy fresh the streams
are very numerous, and almost all of them impassable for a horse without
swimming him, which, in such a river as the Rakaia, is very dangerous
work. Sometimes, perhaps half a dozen times in a year, the river is
what is called bank and bank; that is to say, one mass of water from one
side to the other. It is frightfully rapid, and as thick as pea soup.
The river-bed is not far short of a mile in breadth, so you may judge of
the immense volume of water that comes down it at these times. It is
seldom more than three days impassable in the punt. On the third day
they commenced crossing in the punt, behind which we swam out horses;
since then the clouds had hung unceasingly upon the mountain ranges, and
though much of what had fallen would, on the back ranges, be in all
probability snow, we could not doubt but that the Rangitata would afford
us some trouble, nor were we even certain about the Ashburton, a river
which, though partly glacier-fed, is generally easily crossed anywhere.
We found the Ashburton high, but lower than it had been; in one or two
of the eleven crossing-places between our afternoon and evening resting-
places we were wet up to the saddle-flaps - still we were able to proceed
without any real difficulty.
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