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Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 83, 13 June 1871, Page 5

Last Sunday week (says the Timani Herald of .'{lst May) a man named .Ueddofl' started on an exploring expedition up the dacicrs of Mount Cook, and reached a part of chc mountain never before, we believe, trodden by man. .KeddolV (more commonly known by the name of " Big Mike"') holds a small run under the mountain, and has his homestead about six miles from the foot of the glaciers. Uc undertook his expedition for the purpose of looking for soma sheep that had been driven oft' by dogs, and were supposed to have gone on to tho heights of the mountain. He tracked the sheep from glacier to glacier by their foot-tracks in the snow, and crossed the celebrated Tasnian glacier, about three miles from which he cauie tu.a place called by explorers "The Gully," a vast ice chasm, which few men, if indeed any, have succeeded in crossing. The gully crossed, Mike went still onwards, his dogs being his only companions, and went boldly up one of the main spurs of Mount Cook. On the highest point possible for sheep to reach he found his missing lot, eleven in number, but in returning four were lost by falling over precipices. For two nights Mike camped out upon the ice, one of which he wns lying as it were under the shadow of Mount Cook's highest peak, which ascended upv.arls as a high wall of solid ice, unbroken save here and there by huge points of rock. The travelling in many places being so bad and risky, that UcddoU' had to take oir his boots and trust to his stockinged feet for a foothold, lie returned home on the following Thursday, but his boots, which were nearly new at starting were literally cut t>; ; pieces by (he rough usnge they ha 1 reeeivedyli ' <ho journey. '