ROUND N.Z. BY AIR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20032, 2 September 1939, Page 3

ROUND N.Z. BY AIR

JOURNALIST’S TRIP ARRIVAL IN GISBORNE JOURNEY OF 2000 MILES A tour of New Zealand by air, unusual even in these days when airlines are much used for fast travel, is being made by Mr. W. H. Bickley, editor of the Wanganui Herald, who arrived in Gisborne yesterday and left to-day for Auckland. Having reason to visit both Auckland and Dunedin, he is doing so by air, and on his trip he will make what is believed to he the first circuit of the Dominion by the aeroplanes of the ordinary airlines. From the start to the finish of his trip he will travel by one or other of the three main air transport companies operating in New Zealand.

Travelling via Palmerston North, Napier, Gisborne, Opotiki and Tauranga. he is flying to Auckland, and from there lie will go by way of New Plymouth to Wellington. In about nine hours travelling time he will fhus go practically right round the North Island. An aerial crossing of Cook Strait will take him to Nelson, and from there he will go by air to Westport and Greymouth along the route which was extended to link the West Coast of the South Island and Wellington last March. Crossing the Alps On the West Coast he will join one of the 'planes of the service which carries mails, freight, and passengers to South Westland, and also takes overseas tourists for joy rides over the Southern Alps and the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers. By this service lie will proceed down into South Westland as far as Haast and then over the intervening ranges to Dunedin. There he will connect witli the main north-south service and proceed •bv it to Christchurch, Blenheim, and Palmerston North.

Twenty hours of flying at roughly two miles a minute will take him, over rather more than 2000 miles 01. the scheduled air routes of New Zealand in four types of aeroplanes— Lickhecd Electras, D.H. Express Airliners, DJI. Dragon Rapides and D.H. Dragonflies. The South WestlandDunedin leg of "the journey will be a special charter trip, but apart from this the flight will be. on ordinary air route?, operated daily.