Mt Algidus Station is steeped in folklore- primarily due to the redoubtable Mona Anderson and her series of books that vivdly describe High Country life in isolation and under the complete rule of the rivers around.
As copied from The Early Canterbury Runs (L.G.D Acland):
Mt. Algidus lies in the fork of the Rakaia, Mathias, and Wilberforce rivers, and ran originally along the dividing range from the Mathias Pass to Browning's Pass. Run 195 (five thousand acres) was taken up in June, 1857, by James Phillips, and transferred for £300 to G. A. E. Ross in trust for William Rolleston on 8th July, 1859. Run 278 (five thousand acres) was taken up by J.J. Oakden in October, 1858. On 10th February Oakden sold it for £250 to Ross for Rolleston. In April, 1860, Rolleston took up Runs 355 and 356 in Ross's name. On March 25th, 1861, Ross transferred all four runs to Rolleston.
Neither Phillips nor Oakden stocked his run except perhaps with a few head of cattle to hold the licenses. Rolleston had been a cadet or shepherd with Ross and Harper at Lake Coleridge. On February 18th, 1861, he and a man named Appleyard crossed the Wilberforce and pitched their tent to start the station. Appleyard finished building the house and yards and left on April 26th, but came back from time to time and did most of the building and fencing in the station as long as Rolleston kept it.
In March, 1861, about 200 head of cattle belonging to Archdeacon Mathias arrived on the run, and on April 11th Rolleston took delivery of the sheep at Lake Coleridge, about 1550, 900 of them being Ross's to run on terms. Rolleston shore 1508 at the following shearing. Soon after Rolleston settled on the station Alured George Mathias joined him as manager and stayed till Rolleston sold the place. Mathias afterwards managed the Hamilton station near Mossburn for Hamilton and Rowley and bought the homestead block when the place was cut up. He died there in 1912. He was the Archdeacon's third son.
In May, 1865, Rolleston sold the station to F. D. S. Neave for about £5,000. Neave took delivery on June 3rd. The sale included, besides the leases and seventytwo acres of freehold which Rolleston had bought to protect the bush, 3,275 sheep, two bullocks and two horses. It was Neave who named the station Mt. Algidus. Rolleston named the actual hill after which it is called but he and Mathias always called the station the Rakaia Forks.
Rolleston was afterwards Superintendent of Canterbury. He was famous in New Zealand politics, and was a man of high classical attainments. Downie Stewart has now published an admirable biography of him. He was said to be prouder of being the best bullock driver in Canterbury than anything else. As a matter of fact, he told me once that his reputation was greater than he deserved. He said he was not in a class by himself as a bullock driver, but just 'a very good bullock driver indeed.' It is said of him that instead of swearing at his bullocks, he addressed them in Latin or Greek.
It is to him and Sale and Neave that we owe the fine classical names in those parts. The Hydra (the manyheaded serpent) is a very apt name for a winding creek which splits into a dozen branches on its way through the swamp 'before joining the river, as anyone will see who has to find their way across it for the first time.
Neave sold in 1884 to J. H. C. Bond and Charles Stewart Wood, who had been his cadets. Soon afterwards Wood sold his share to Bond, who took his brother W. N. C. Bond, into partnership about 1886. The Bonds sold to Pringle about 1892, but took the place back about 1895, and finally sold it in 1897 to Mrs George Murray-Aynsley, whose executors are still [1945] the owners. Mrs Murray-Aynsley's first manager was Roderick Urquhart, now at Mesopotamia. He was succeeded by his brother William, who managed it until 1934 when he was succeeded by R. A. Anderson, the present manager.
The runs of which Mt. Algidus originally consisted took in all the river facings and safe country, but there was a wedge-shaped block of ninety thousand acres of high tops, mostly bush-bound, in the middle, which was not included in the leases. David Stott, a gorge musterer, applied for this country, and was given a lease for £12 a year rent. He put out four thousand wethers on it, but finding he could not winter them there, sold his rights to Mrs Murray-Aynsley.
Alfred Comyns once took two thousand sheep through the Mathias Pass and stocked the open country on the West Coast side between the Pass and the bush, but he abandoned it after a year as impracticable.
For more reading begin with A River Rules My Life- Mona Anderson
The Wilberforce River in all its moods governed Mona Anderson's life for 33 years, and was inspiration for her best-seller A River Rules My Life.
Her introduction to the river came in 1940 when she arrived as the bride of Ron Anderson, manager of Mt Algidus Station.
She had been looking after an aunt on the West Coast of the South Island, when an old swaggie nicknamed John the Baptist called in for his regular cup of tea. He was taken with the young woman and surprised that she wasn't married.
"I know of a man who needs a wife," he said, and gave her Ron Anderson's address.
She first wrote to him as a joke, but when he replied she was impressed and the correspondence flourished. They met, fell in love and married.
The 23,000ha Mt Algidus property lies in a fork between three rivers in the Canterbury high country. In the early 40s it was regarded as some of the wildest and roughest farming land in New Zealand.
Access to the homestead, at 550m above sea level, was by horse or dray across the river, when water levels would allow.
The young Mrs Anderson set about home-making with enthusiasm and energy and a good-sized sense of humour.
"Before I was married I knew nothing about station life," she said. "I could have distinguished between a cow and a sheep and I could sometimes tell the difference between a lamb chop and a pork chop, but that was the limit of my experience, and I was determined to keep my ignorance to myself."
She fed shearers and musterers, and established a garden which in that climate could flourish only during summer. She rescued stray animals which became her pets. Among them were hedgehogs, a kea and a muscovy drake.
Communication with the outside world was difficult at best. A radio-telephone, installed in the 1950s, linked the station to the post office in Methven, and even when the station was sold in 1973, there was still no telephone line.
Electricity was eventually provided by a diesel generator, and cooking was done on a wood-stove. Mrs Anderson quickly learned to keep a store of food and to order her groceries in bulk: a 90 pound chest of tea, a quarter of a ton of flour and sugar.
Ill health led to a stay in hospital in the early 1960s, and the enforced idleness as well as homesickness led Mrs Anderson to resume her childhood hobby of writing. The writing paper soon ran out, so she continued making notes on the backs of get-well cards and flattened-out envelopes. When Ron came to take her home, she had a suitcase full of notes. Asked what she was going to do with "this rubbish", she replied: "That's not rubbish, that's my book".
A River Rules My Life was published in 1963 and ran to nine editions and reprints. A deep interest in the Mt Algidus Station then led Mrs Anderson to delve into its history, and she spent hours researching old letters and photos and jogging memories to produce her second book, The Good Logs of Algidus, in 1965. More books followed, including Over the River in 1966 and The Wonderful World at My Doorstep in 1968.
In 1973 western Canterbury was hit by the worst blizzard in 30 years. Seeking to learn how people in remote areas were coping with the conditions, the Herald managed to get a message to Mrs Anderson, asking her to report on how life had been disrupted in the high country. Once written, the problem was to get the story out. She explained: "My report left the station and went over the river by horse.
"From the iron-store [on the other side of the Wilberforce] it travelled the next seven miles by tractor, then on to Lake Coleridge by 4WD vehicle. From Lake Coleridge to Darfield by private car ... from Darfield post office to Christchurch by the West Coast railcar ... then from Christchurch to Auckland by air.
"So, although the story left here travelling on Duke [the station horse] at about one mile an hour, it gained speed as it travelled along."
The station was sold in 1973, and the Andersons moved to Darfield on the Canterbury Plains 45km west of Christchurch.
A part-time job working behind the counter of a friend's bookshop inspired Mrs Anderson to try her hand at children's books. She based her stories on the animals and pets she had had at the station, and The Water Joey and Home Is the High Country were the successful results.
Mona Anderson was not a driven writer. "When writing becomes a chore I will give up. I only write when I feel like it," she once said.
Mona Tarling was born in Whitecliffs near Darfield in 1910. She and her two brothers went to the local primary school, where Mona was recognised as a scribbler and note-taker. She won several prizes for essays, including the then prestigious Lady Liverpool certificate for composition, which the little girl described as "ugly".
Mona Anderson was awarded an MBE in 1979 for services to literature.
Ron Anderson died in 1992. The couple had no children.