SURVEY PARTY IN TROUBLE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2079, 14 May 1907, Page 4

SURVEY PARTY IN TROUBLE.

An unusual series of misadventures befel a surveying party of three mon whilst engaged cutting a line for the Survey Department from (Bongo's Plat to the junction of the Hutt and Pukuratahi rivers towards the. end of last week. The distance, they wero told, was about three miles, Irat it was not until they had been as many days in the bush that they found themselves again. They had taken provisions for a day’s outing, and during the other two days had to subsist on roots and leaves. After cutting through. the bush and failing to connect with tho junction track, they walked on the first day until 6 o’clock, when it was pitch dark, and one of the party ,gavo up.; All attempts to light a fire failed owing to the dampness of the wood. The conditions wero mado worse by a fall of sleety snow, from which they sought shelter under a mass of scrub .which the men had cut.. Two unsuccessful endeavors to cross the Hutt river, which was running swift Jand deep, had left them wet and more miserable than ever. They tried to get a dog which was with them to carry a message asking for help, but the animal would not leave the men. There was no sleep that night. Next day the men trudged for two and a half hours in the rain, and then turned back progress being slow owing to the legs of the youngest member of the party giving out. At one o’clock they arrived opposite the empty camp of the Taupo Timber Company’s surveyors, but further progress was stopped by a large creek. They camped there until next morning, still minus food, when communication was opened with some men in the camp on the opposite side of the creek, ;over which a crossing was eventually effected. The adventurers wero drying their clothes at the camp fire when a rescue party arrived on the scene, and the combined forces had to istay the night there owing to the "river being too high toO'bross. Kaitoke was reached at noon the following day. Four rescue parties, containing some twenty men all told, were scouring the countryside looking for the missing men.