Manawatu rail: Rangitane Traditional Cache
Hidden : 2/13/2013
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:

One of a series of simple, easy to find, caches at railway stations in and around the Manawatu.

Welcome aboard the Foxton-Palmerston tram service to Palmerston! Last stop Oroua Bridge, next stop Tiakitahuna.

Okay, I have deviated a little here. Rangitane station was not here. It was a kilometre up the road toward Palmerston North, at the Himitangi/Opiki junction. The road to Opiki going past here is Rangitane Road. There is nowhere good to place a cache there, so it's here.

There is very little information about this stop, which was placed in the middle of swamp country. This, at least, suggests its purpose - to cater to the local flax industry, from which hemp (for rope) is made. Once the flax was cleared and the land drained, livestock would have been its principal export. This cache is at Nga Whakarau which was a small Māori village, another possible reason for the stop. (Nga Whakarau means "The captives". However it is dangerous to make literal translations of Māori place names as they are often shortened so the meaning will be distorted and out of context).


Rangitane station, 1955

Just past Oroua Bridge, the road leaves the railway and sweeps out a large curve to avoid a swamp that used to be there. At Rangitane Station the road rejoins the railway and the hugs it all the way to Palmerston North. The rail right-of-way can be easily seen on the left edge of the road as you travel to Palmerston North.

Shortly before you got here from Oroua, the corner in the road was known as Half-Crown and was where, in 1870, the tramway to Palmerston was first proposed to start, probably because the ground between Half-Crown and Bainesse was so swampy. Half-Crown was so named as there was a black cook (Māori? African?) who ran an eating house there, charging half a crown for every meal. Certainly it was easier to say than Nga Whakarau, the name of the closest named entity, the village here, where the cache is. The plan was to remove some snags in the river upstream to improve the water flow, thus allowing for a paddle steamer to ferry passengers from Moutoa, on the outskirts of Foxton. A.W.F. Halcombe, the Provincial Secretary, after whom Halcombe township is named (he settled there), came with J.T. Stewart, the District Surveyor and with Chew, a sawmiller from Porirua who was experienced in tramways. That the Secretary himself came shows how important local transportation was. After an inspection of the route they said the tram was feasible but that the cost, although less than £1000 "was far beyond the resources of the Treasury". Nonetheless, prosperity was such that a steam powered tram-line was funded the very next year (with help from the Vogel act of 1870 and some overseas borrowing), and not to start from Half-Crown but all the way from Foxton. Construction started in 1871 from the town of Palmerston and reached Foxton in 1873. When the construction reached here the line's steam engine, a Sparrow engine named Palmerston was floated up the river to here - the Manawatu River is just 150m to the left as you look to the hills. However the engine proved too heavy for the wooden rails and light foundation and, with a top speed of 16km/h too slow, so was pulled from service almost immediately. After the tramway was upgraded to a railway in 1876, better engines were available, however the Palmerston did see further work as a ballast train.

The cache is a camo 400ml container. At Oroua I talked about the floods. Here you can see just how bad they were. While here get a photo measuring yourself against the flood marker!

References:
Buick, T. Lindsey, J.P: "Old Manawau, or the Wild Days of the West", published by Buick & Young, 1903.
Cassells, K.R.: "The Foxton and Wanganui Railway", published by the New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, 1984.
Wanganui Herald, 10 September, 1878.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Cbjre!

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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