THRILLING EXPERIENCE ON THE OTIRA.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 22 April 1901, Page 4

THRILLING EXPERIENCE ON THE OTIRA.

(West Coast Times),

Two gentlemen, Mr Reynolds, of Auckland, Rudge-Whitworth Bicycle Company, and Mi' Clarkson of tlxe Lyttelton Times, arrived in Hokitika yesterday evening after an eventful bicycle journey over tlxe Otira Gorge. The}' will not be very anxious to undergo a second adventure of tlxe kind. After leaving tlxe Bealey Hotel on Sunday afternoon in ratber threatening weather, their first mishap was the bursting of both tyres oi one of the bikes, which caused a delay that cosit them the required daylight foxgetting over the Gorge. Darkness overtook them before they reached Pegleg Creek, which was swollen and it was then so dark they could not find the road after crossing. The two cyclists recrossod the stream and took shelter under a rocky bank with the rain coming down in torrents. The darkness was so dense they could not see each other and here they remained from seven o'clock till three in the morning, soaked to the skin and obliged to keep stamping their feat and swinging their arms to retain warmth in their bodies. During the long hours they heard what sounded like the approach of a benighted fellow-being, and hailed two or three times to x-eceive a responsive melancholy low from a wandering cow. At about three o’clock, tlxe light of tlxe moon shewing faintly through the thick clouds, they ventured to push on ahead and with great pluck entered upon the dangerous feat of walking down the Gorge in the thick darkness, cautiously feeling their way by hugging the High bank, tlxough at the sudden bends going uncomfortably near the edge of the precipice. At five o’clock the unhappy travellers reached the Otira Hotel drench xd to the skin and wearied out. Here they were storm bound for three days, with the wind rushing down the Gorge with hurricane force and the swollen stream roaring with deafening noise down its narrow channel. Messrs Reynolds and Clarkson will not forgot their adventurers in a hurry.