OLD MOTORING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 82, 4 October 1938, Page 9

OLD MOTORING

VICEREGAL JOURNEY

"HIS EX. HAS FAINTED"

A unique and amusing pictorial record of a journey from Wellington to JRotorua in times when roads and car» jwere not what they are today—a journey which was lent distinction by the fact that one party included a former Governor of New Zealand,. Lord Plunket, and his wife, was before tha executive of the Automobile Association (Wellington) last night. The record comprised an album of 12 photographs, apparently: taken byLady Plunket, and it was forwarded to the association by Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., whose father, Mr. W. L. Luxford, was in the other car which comprised the expedition.: In an accompanying letter Lord Plunket refers to the trip as an "interesting expedition." The year was 1905. Something of the trying nature of the journey can be gathered from the fact that it occupied from October 31 to November 5. Nowadays it is not considered gruelling to cover " that distance and more in a day.

The party did not get very fax? before they struck trouble. Lady Plunket's second photograph—by .the way her party occupied the "Argyll"— shows the car stuck in the mud on the Rimutakas with, the curt caption "Bogged." The other crew are brought to the rescue'again in the next photograph and the fourth shows a rope, block and pulley in use, plus manpower. A horse is next brought into the picture, and with the car stopped in the middle of a stream the words, "A painted ship upon a painted ocean," naturally suggest themselves. One of the most intimate viceregal studies* ever made must be the ; one showing Lord Plunket leaning-out of the car, with a pipe .in. his" mouth'and wearing a deer-stalker hat,-shouting instructions to another member of the party to push, and then-in -the next photograph lying apparently exhausted over the side of the car. "His Ex. has fainted," the caption has it.