The history of Travis Wetland

by Mike Crean

Imagine a magnificent vista of tall native trees, luxuriant bush, elegant marine birdlife, picturesque lakes and streams. There is such a sight, right here in Christchurch. It is Travis Wetland, a Nature Heritage Park, near Burwood Hospital.

The wetland has a history. For more than 500 years Waitaha Maori visited it as a source of food and plant fibre for weaving. Work to recreate this original scene was begun about 50 years ago. Its development as a natural wetland is now greatly advanced. Bus-loads of school groups come to learn how the Maori lived, worked and played in the distant past.

But one part of the history seems to be ignored. For a century the land was cleared, drained and farmed by European settlers. Senior citizens may remember this lost era. It sits between the Maori period and its current re-creation.

The son of a worker on the Travis Farm regrets that younger generations know nothing of the farm that operated from the late 1880s to the late 1980s. He is Engel van Lieff, who emigrated from Holland with his family in 1958 and settled here.

Engel, 76, is enthusiastic about the recreated wetland. He walks its tracks often with his binoculars trained on birdlife in the native trees. But his mind slips back to the sights and sounds of the former farm. He grew up here. He wishes visitors and school groups could learn the full history of the park.

His family moved into the aged wooden farmhouse that stood about 20 metres off Travis Road. Engel’s father worked for the farm owners, the Florence brothers. Engel enjoyed exploring the land, feeling his gumboots sinking in the swampy ground, paddling his canoe on the creek, catching eels in a net for smoking and eating, drinking pure water straight from an aquifer.

Not so pleasant was his weekly chore of hefting the outdoor lavatory bucket to the hole his father had dug and tipping in the contents. In later years he hauled the bucket to the roadside for the nightcart man to empty and take away.

“That pong….and what a pong….it stank. I felt myself getting nauseous and retching several times, even with a dampened hanky covering my mouth. It was foul,” Engel says.

His mother, meanwhile, worked in a factory that also faced Travis Road. It employed half-a-dozen staff members who produced wooden coat-hangers for buyers such as clothing shop Hallensteins.

Although the land was swampy in parts, drainage made much of it suitable for cows. Many older folk can recall the idyllic pastoral scene, lined as it was by exotic willow and poplar trees, gorse hedges and fences – a traditional dairy farm where Friesian cows chewed their cuds sedately on lush pasture, while workers made hay and stored silage for winter fodder.

Today many people walk, and ride their wheelchairs, on the 3.5km path that winds through the native forest, beside ponds and a lake, close to the multitudes of birds. Few are aware of the dairy days relics.

In the north-east corner of the park is a remnant of ancient sand dunes.

On a slight rise stands an aged but renovated house that is now a headquarters and education centre. Nearby are vintage barns where hay bales were once stacked, where tractors and farm implements were once stored.

Standing opposite are the concrete walls of the dairy. Here the milk company truck came each day and large metal cream cans full of fresh frothy milk were loaded onto the deck. In later days milk was held in a large tank and pumped into a tanker truck.

Attached to the dairy is the milking shed – a series of bays which 100 cows entered each day with supremely good manners. Suction cups were attached to the cows’ teats and the milk flowed. Meanwhile, other cows in the herd awaited their turn patiently in the yard with its concrete floor and sturdy fences. Large concrete troughs on either side of the yard provided water for the cows. The yard sloped gently so the cows’ droppings could be hosed into a collecting area. It would later become rich manure. With an eye to the future, a pedigree bull and his team of heifers dwelt in a nearby paddock.

Engel enjoyed watching birds then but says more varieties can be seen today. As we walk, he spots graceful white spoonbills on tree branches beside a small lake. He points out a big eel poking its nose above the lake surface. Fat pukeko proliferate, along with Canada geese and paradise ducks.

Looking at Travis Wetland today, barely any exotic trees can be seen. Many workers and volunteers have planted and cared for native trees of all sorts which have grown quickly in the damp conditions. Planting goes on and more is planned.

Engel says thanks must go to the late Anne Flanagan, a vigorous member of the Burwood-Pegasus Community Board (1989-94). She drove the process of procuring and establishing the 56-hectare wetland park for the people of Christchurch. Engel hopes signs and leaflets with information and photographs of the farming days will be displayed to complete the heritage story.