LONG TOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1932, Page 5

LONG TOUR

NEW ZEALANDER'S ADVENTURES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, 24th January.

A strange figure in the streets of Melbourne during the week-end was Mr. Stanley Rose, a New Zealander, who was completing a tour of 5000 miles by land and water in New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria. He was clad only in singlet and shorts and pushed before him a canoe mounted on cycle wheels. Peoplo stared at him as he made his way through the busy streets until he arrived at the home of a friend where he is staying until he sets out for Tasmania.' He had a long and trying journey from Adelaide, for he found that there was little water on which he could travel, and his tanned skin, hard and weatherbeaten, gave some indications of the hardships he must have endured on tho hard, dusty roads. Mr. Rose is a native of England, but went to New Zealand about five years ago. He set out on his long journey about 18 months ago, and says that he travelled about 3000 miles in the Dominion before coming to Australia. Travel was easier in the Dominion bocause of the many water ways and the more temperate climate. He is never without his rod and his gun, and with the aid of these is able to subsist. He has traversed in his canoe most of the important rivers in New South Wales and South. Australia, pushing his canoe overland when water transport is not available. One long walk was from Newcastle to Manilla, in New South Wales, a distance of about 220 miles. Then he went by way of various rivers to Goolwa, in South Australia. From Goolwa he walked to Adelaide.

This New Zealander is lighthearted, and is disinclined to talk of his adventures, which, he says, "are nothing." Several times while navigating New South Wales rivers ho was caught by flood waters and upset, but he was always able to extricate himself from such difficulties. He found the trip a "bit monotonous," but it was not the monotony of being alone in the bash that troubled him. His appearance always aroused a great deal of curiosity, and he became weary of explaining to everyone the nature of his travels—the whys and the wherefores. Anyway, he is never quite alone, for his' companion has always been a magpie which perches on the prow of the canoe. The canoe weighs 601b and is 12ft long. The kit and gear in the canoe weigh about 2001b.