I like maps
I like maps. Especially old maps. Especially old maps of places I know.
Just the other day I came across an old book of maps on TradeMe. It was issued by the A.A. quite a while ago — long enough ago that it predates publishers annotating maps with the date they were drawn. The maps inside are in good condition, although the cover shows evidence of a life in a grubby glove box.
Although there’s no direct evidence of the date of publication, there are enough clues in the maps themselves that I could probably pin it down reasonably well. These are artifacts that someone from New Zealand, especially the areas I’m familiar with, will be aware of. Here are some of the things I’ve noticed:
- The road through the Homer Saddle to Milford Sound is shown as being under construction.
- A dotted line indicates where there are plans to build a road through the Haast Pass. When I first learned to drive this was the last unsealed bit of main highway in the country.
- Another dotted line shows an intended road from Haast down the coast to Milford Sound. What an engineering feat that would have been!
- There are railway lines everywhere. I’m especially sad about this — I have fond memories of railway trips around the country as a child, but recent governments have made their business supporters rich by allowing them to profit from selling of state assets like railways. Railway lines include:
- a line from Rakaia to Methven
- the Middlemarch → Clyde line, now the Central Otago Rail Trail. The map’s a bit unclear, but it appears to go even further upstream from Clyde.
- the Otira tunnel is shown (see note on cars over Arthur’s Pass, below)
- a line from Waipara to Waiau
- the line from Nelson down to Glenhope. Next time you’re driving through the Lewis Pass, stop at Kawatiri (the turnoff to the Nelson Lakes) and take a walk through the abandoned railway tunnel there. It’s a sad reminder that with a little more effort at the time, we could have had a passenger rail service from Christchurch to Nelson.
- another line I never knew existed runs from Tinwald through Mt Somers
- the line from Hornby to Lincoln splits. One leg runs to Southbridge, the other to Little River. The latter is now also being developed as a cycle trail.
- At the Waipara river, the road is shown to the west of the railway line (the old road lines are still visible).
- In Christchurch:
- the metropolitan area runs from Papanui in the north to the Heathcote River in the south, and from Linwood in the east to somewhere short of Riccarton in the west
- Brougham Street runs from Antigua Street to Waltham Road, no further
- the airport isn’t important enough to rate a mention, but routes to the old motor camp in Addington are clearly marked
- one left town heading north on Papanui Road — the route out on Cranford didn’t exist
- There are interesting notes at Otira and Springfield. At Springfield it says “Cars trucked here for West Coast” and at Otira it says “Cars trucked here for Canterbury”. I’ll have to consult with those more in the know to find out what was going on here.
Regardless of how old this map book is, I’m really enjoying it. I haven’t aquired old maps since I was a teenager — it’s clearly about time I started looking again.