Wheelbarrow Race History
The Carterton Wheelbarrow Race is a uniquely Wairarapa event.
The race celebrates the story of one of the Wairarapa's earliest settlers, Samuel Oates.
Family legend says that Samuel started working for Charles Rooking Carter (one of Carterton's founding fathers who the town is named after) almost as soon as he arrived in New Zealand in January 1856, assisting with the construction of a hotel and a butcher’s shop.
Carter then asked him to take some goods to his Wairarapa farm. Samuel’s three-day journey over the Rimutakas, pulling and pushing a substantial wooden wheelbarrow, became Wairarapa legend.
Samuel, thirsty after his long journey, pulled up outside the Rising Sun Hotel, in Greytown. He popped inside to quench his thirst, and on returning to his barrow, found that three of the gum trees Carter reputedly brought back from Australia, had been removed from the barrow.
These three stolen gum trees were planted in various sites in Greytown. The one survivor is the giant Eucalyptus regnans in the grounds of St Luke’s Anglican Church in Greytown. Samuel settled in Parkvale and remained in Carterton till he died in 1892.
The original race has its roots back in 1936, when locals raced steel-wheeled barrows 6km along metal roads from the Waiohine Bridge to Carterton's clock tower.
The event was revived 65 years later and was run for 9 years until 2010.
Last year the event wasn't run but is back for 2012!
You can find more about Samuel Oates at the Masterton Library site:
http://www.library.mstn.govt.nz/history/SamuelOates.html
You can find an archive of the 2010 event here.