LOST IN RANGES.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1926, Page 1

LOST IN RANGES.

PARTY OF BOY SCOUTS,

SYDNEY, January 4

Afucli uneasiness was caused in the Rockhampton District of Queensland by the disappearance for three days of a party of six Boy Scouts in charge of -Major G. B. Patterson, Scout Commissioner for Central Queensland; and on their return to town they related n tale of hardships and food shortage that tested all their seoutcraft to overcome. The hoys were members of a party of twenty that left Rockhampton on December 2Gtli for a holiday trekon the Blnckdown Tableland, a part of the Exhibition Range about 25 miles from Rockhampton. It reached the tableland on December 28th. On the following afternoon, six of the boys, with Major Patterson and a guide named Lindore, who lives in the neighbourhood, left the camp to visit a waterfall. They lmd not returned by the afternoon of December 31st, and after making a futile search, tho party at the camp informed a station-owner, who organised a search, with the assistance of police and blncktrackcrs. Late in the afternoon, the missing party with the exception of Lindore. reached a stockyard, which proved to he near their camp. Lindore was found tho next morning. Behind this bare story of the wanderings of the party lies a story of hardships. of nights spent in eaves, with an iguana and a couple of lizards ns their only food. After leaving the camp on December 29th, the party had encountered a network of creeks, and their guide followed the wrong one. That night they camped in a cave, which bore on the walls in red oohre sketches hv aborigines. Next morning

the party followed the creek down, mid reached a gorge hundreds of feet deep. Then they followed another creek, but this only led them further into the heart of the silent, lonely hush. Then Lindore, the guide, suggested that, he should try and reach the camp by himself, and this proposal was agreed to. NIGHT IN A CAVE. The night of December 30th was also spent in a cave. Attempts were made at smoke signals, but the fires failed, owing to the grass being damp. The hoys captured a couple of lizards, as food they had brought had become exhausted, and then one of the party scaled a tree, and after a struggle kockod an iguana to the ground. The lizards and iguana. “ blackfelhi food,” were boiled and eaten, and the hungry scouts reckoned them the best food they had ever tasted. The next night they again camped in a cave, after a day of walking through extremely rough country, and they again resorted to reptiles of the bush for their food.

The New Yea r dawned miserably for the small party. It seemed that they would never regain civilised settlement, hut cheerfully they set out and travelled over what proved to be the roughest country of their three days’ experience. The hoys’ stockings were torn and their limbs were bruised and cut. But that day their wanderings came to an end, and that they had not been wandering aimlessly was proved by the fact that they came out of the lonely hush, so close to the camp they had been seeking for three days. The guide. Lindore, who was not found till the following morning, had lost himself on the way back, and he was exhausted when a police constable and

:i I nicker came upon hint. .Major Patterson said that he had wanted a somewhat more strenuous camp than that usually undergone by scouts, but this experience bad been far too strenuous. “ Nevertheless.” he added cheerfully. “ it turned into a wonderful test Unpractical and disciplinary training given in (he Seoul, movement.”