Englishman Spends £1500 To Reach N.Z.

Chronicle (Levin), 10 August 1948, Page 3

Englishman Spends £1500 To Reach N.Z.

WELLINGTON, August 9., How a young Englishman and his family travelled 20,000 miles in six months and spent his savings of £1500 to reach New Zealand was described" when the Akaroa berthed at Welling-1 ton on Safurd'ay with passengers from England and Austraiia. Mr. R. C. Harding with his wife and young children aged five, eight and nine, looked hopefully across the ship;s rail at' the co'untry to which hehad come so far to try his luck. It was raining. The Harding family was smiling. t. " We., have just go,t to malce a sueCess of things, and we have got to istay. - We have burned our boats behind us, th£y • said. After tryiiig to get a passage to New Zealand through the ordinary channels they left England for Belgium, explained Mrs. BLardingi •They were able to get a victory ship to Ldbito — a town in Portuguese West' Africa. Tlren a train j'ourney of two . weeks took them into the Belgian Coiigo and across Africa to Northern Rhodesih. With the assurance of a schoolted.c?het giving a geography lesson Mrs. Harding rattled off a string of unfamiliar names of places they had stopped at, and even outlined a little' fiiap with her finger on the slnp's rail."' "We tliought it would be a great experience for the children to travel so widely, ' ' she said. There were halts at Durban, Johan-" nesburg, and Cape Town, 'and even a visit to Ihe fanious Kimberley diamond mines. They were told there was 110 hope of getting to New Zealand direct so they took a passage to Sydnev and waited ( ready at 48 hours' notice) to finish the journey to New Zealand. Impfessions of the long journey? Weeks of glaring sunshine in Africa ■ — bananas in Lobito — lots of ice cream, and a wliole York hani in Belgium were some of them. MA Harding, who is a ])hotographer, intends to seek work in Auckland.