TRAMP OVER RANGES BY MAROONED PASSENGERS

Chronicle (Levin), 4 September 1947, Page 5

TRAMP OVER RANGES BY MAROONED PASSENGERS

— «►- — NAPIER, Sept. 3. With darkness closing in around them and in the teeth of a driving snow?torm 17 passengers from two snowbound service cars- on the Napier-Taupo Road late yesterday afternoon trudged wearily over the 235.0ft summit of tne Titiokura Range to the shelter of the Te Poliue Hotel. s Service cars from Rotorua and Taupo, earrying passengers from several paris of the North Island, were held up _bv the snow on the Taupo side of Titiokura at 3.30 p.m. yesterday. The snow eovered the road to a depth of 8m arnl car-s were unable to elimb the hill. ^ A party of 17 passengers, ineluding women and children, set out on foot to elimb over the range. After a two aud a-lialf hour journey through the suowstorm they reached the hotel. Some of the women had great difficulty in walking through the snow in high-heeled shoes. One woman removed her shoes and wallced the seven-mile journey bare feet, which were badly swollen when she reached Te Pohue. A party of six passengers, including a uiother and a sick baby, were unable to make the trip and were taken back along the road to a roadman's whare. A Public Works Department grader From Bayview arrived at Te Pohue at 7.30 o'eloclc last night. It graded the snow from the road and permitted the service cars to elimb over the hill to Te Pohue. Tlie party whieh walked over the hill were brought to Napier, arriving at nine o'elock, and the party from the whare arrived at Napier at i a.m. today.