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We drove modified golf carts on the rail-track through stunning country - native bush, hills stretching away in the distance, even glimpses of the mountains of the central high country. We saw evidence of fossils from 14-17 million years ago, left in the sedimentary rock before the upthrust of this land through tectonic activity.
And all the while we were learning a little about the people who had worked so very hard to construct the track and push west in the early years of the twentieth century: the surveyor who died of peritonitis, in spite of friends' efforts to ride for days to get help; the women who raised children and stock and somehow survived; the vast unnamed numbers of men who were deemed unfit for service in WW1 but who nevertheless cut timber for sleepers, built trellis viaducts of untreated wood and then packed them with soil, using wheelbarrows not bulldozers!
Of most of these people, little trace remains: the occasional grave marker, fading unnamed photos in the pub at Whangamomona, the chimney standing alone in the paddock and snippets of stories meandering down the years.
But the fruit of their hard labour endures: there's the literal fruit - heavy laden old apple trees, their fruit sharp and refreshing, and round the corner, the 'best plums in the world'. And there are the tunnels - we went through twenty on our 83km journey - some of them lined with bricks made on site from local clay - all of them required the removal of tons of earth - again with no modern machinery. Working in the pitch black, damp and bitter cold for a meagre wage, these folk have left us an example of courage, persistence, camaraderie, and good old Kiwi ingenuity. The fruit of their spirit lives on; we were blessed to have witnessed it that day.
What will be the example we leave behind, I wonder?
What stories will remain in the memories of those who follow us ?
Will our 'fruit' bear witness to the Godly fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,generosity, faithfulness and self-control? I pray so.
And all the while we were learning a little about the people who had worked so very hard to construct the track and push west in the early years of the twentieth century: the surveyor who died of peritonitis, in spite of friends' efforts to ride for days to get help; the women who raised children and stock and somehow survived; the vast unnamed numbers of men who were deemed unfit for service in WW1 but who nevertheless cut timber for sleepers, built trellis viaducts of untreated wood and then packed them with soil, using wheelbarrows not bulldozers!
Of most of these people, little trace remains: the occasional grave marker, fading unnamed photos in the pub at Whangamomona, the chimney standing alone in the paddock and snippets of stories meandering down the years.
But the fruit of their hard labour endures: there's the literal fruit - heavy laden old apple trees, their fruit sharp and refreshing, and round the corner, the 'best plums in the world'. And there are the tunnels - we went through twenty on our 83km journey - some of them lined with bricks made on site from local clay - all of them required the removal of tons of earth - again with no modern machinery. Working in the pitch black, damp and bitter cold for a meagre wage, these folk have left us an example of courage, persistence, camaraderie, and good old Kiwi ingenuity. The fruit of their spirit lives on; we were blessed to have witnessed it that day.
What will be the example we leave behind, I wonder?
What stories will remain in the memories of those who follow us ?
Will our 'fruit' bear witness to the Godly fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,generosity, faithfulness and self-control? I pray so.
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