A LONG TRAMP.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 May 1926, Page 4

A LONG TRAMP.

RECORD OF RUNAWAY BOYS. AUCKLAND, Alay 11. A journey of 127 miles in seven days, mostly on foot and over rough country roads, is the record of two boys, aged fourteen ami eleven, in an effort to reach their homo at Pirongia. 190 miles from their starting point on the north shore of AA’hangarei Harbour. Tho lads, who were in service at Pa rim Bay under license from the Aloimt Albert Probation Home, ran away at the end of last- month and walked to AVliangarei Heads. Finding a dinghy on the shore next day, they crossed to the southern shore and made their nay to Devonport. On reaching- Alercer, they were taken into custody by Constable Douglas and returned to the Abiiint Albert Probation Home. Naturally the boys managed to secure some assistance on the jouiney. After landing on the southern shore of AVliangarei Harbour, they made for VATiipu a kindly resident giving them a lift and some food to go on with. Their story, was truthfully enough, that they were returning to their parents at Pi r on<rta, but they forgot to mention hero, as elsewhere, their, connection with’ the Probation Home. By stages of twenty miles a day, so the hoys say. they tramped down tho east coast, receiving food and shelter at two or three points, and helping out these rations by corn cobs gleaned from wayside paddocks. Eight miles out of Devonport they met a modern good Samaritan in a motor-car, and were ilriven into Devonport. led. giien money and placed aboard a ferry-boat t (l Auckland. Tho hoys did not tarry in the metropolis, probably owing to risk of recognition, hut set off in business-like fashion for the Gicat South Road, and so to Papatoetoe. Here their tale of woe was rewarded l>y another kind-hearted person, who put them up for the night and also gave them railway tickets to Papakura. Probably emboldened by tho continued success of their enterprise .the hoys made for the police station at Papakura, where no suspicions were aroused. The hoys managed to eat a hearty dinner under the very eyes of the law’s minions, whom at that moment they were evading, and no doubt were delighted when the police arranged for their conveyance to Mercer in an afternoon train. This was the easiest twenty miles of all their long trek, but at Alerter, once more reporting to the police, the hoys had to suffer the chagrin of discovery after having covered two-thirds of a 190-mile journey to their home at Pirongia. They are hack in the Probation Home now, and are reported not to he in the least footsore or in any other way the worse for their long tramp.