Overview
Tues. Mar. 19
A fearful gale during the night + a most remarkable morning. About midnight the easterly turned to a terrific gale + fires on the Arapaepae Range spread until Beecher's Gimblett's + Kay's hills were glowing with fires. The raging of the wind kept me awake all night. Just before or perhaps at daybreak I looked out + there was a strange livid glow or light. At 7am instead of being broad daylight, it was quite dark + the sky ruddy apparently with smoke. At 7.15 there was about 5 minutes of ordinary daylight but very hazy with blush smoke all round. As I walked over to Cheslyn Rise about 7.30, the wind changed to the north + it gradually got dark again + when I reached the house it was quite dark. This lasted from 7.45 to 8.15. They were getting breakfast by the light of candles. There was a strong smell of fire, little ashes in the air + plastered on the windows.
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but no smoke in the immediate vicinity though the sky above must have been dense with it. At 8.15 the sky changed colour + became blood red [windows] + dim figures walking about with candles. Then the red sky changed to vivid yellow. Clif had gone down to get his horse when it was very dark + he said that the candle light in the windows looked green + that the change in the sky from blood red to yellow was very sudden. Had breakfast at Cheslyn Rise + then Clif +I rode up river. At 8.45 as we passed Honore's there was ordinary daylight again but later the sky again became first red, then yellow + then just smokey. We rode as far as Trass' house + found them all right but glad to see someone, Mr Trass being away. Then we rode up to tip of Leighton Spur + fired the heaps I logged up yesterday + on acc[ount] of the wind they went with a roar. Rode ome + on getting out on the plain found
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the wind raging from the north. Met Gimblett + he said he had heard that a flax swamp had got on fire - evidently the smoke from this, driven across the rising sun by the change of the wind from east to north caused the remarkable darkness + the vivid colours from 7.45 to 8.15. A number of the people on our party line were quite puzzled or scared + the telephone was buzzing in great style. Heavy driving rain started about 1.30 - I rode to Levin to do some business + heard all sorts of rumours accounting for the darkness, such as Ngaruahoe in eruption, townships on Main Trunk Rly [Railway] being wiped out + trains stopped, also some said it was an eclipse of the sun. Later the wind changed to west + kept up its howling for rest of the day, with occasional bursts of rain.
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[High resolution image of whole page is available by scrolling through images attached to George Leslie Adkin personal diary, May 1917-February 1919