Gavin Marshall

Zelma tells me that her father Clarence got home from the first  world war in 1919 and over the next two years set about shifting his house out to the head of Big Raupo on the eastern(sunny)side from 

'Little Brook" on the valley floor in Little Akaloa. This cutting up and shifting of houses was common place in the early days.He married Doris on 18 th of May 1921 and they raised four children in this house. They shifted a kilometer up the valley on the other side of the road where Zelma lives today in 1943. Ron and Nancy Craw lived in the house for a further 2 or 3 years before it too became "forgotten" and used as a hay shed. It did have an electrical switch board inside. The house does not enjoy the magnificent view of Big Raupo below it a kilometer away despite there being plenty of flattened section on the seaward side where that could have happened. Zelma tells me it was her fathers intent to build there but with depression it did not happen.

This view is looking towards the sea and clearly you can see the marks where the building had been cut for it's shift from Little Brook in Little Akaloa. Again in this photo there is evidence of how well the shelter belt trees grew in their new land. Often towering over the houses they were planted to protect.