For many years picks, shovels and muscle were the main tools for road works. Roads were often built up with rock that lay close to hand. If a bluff had to be blasted for the road to pass, the rubble was used in the road works. Road workers of this era smoked tobacco in clay pipes and wore bowyangs – string tied around their knees to keep their trousers clear of the mud.
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Alexander Turnbull Library, James McAllister Collection (PAColl-3054)
Reference:
1/2-021078; C
Photograph by James McAllister
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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