AUSTRIAN’S LONG ROW

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 915, 7 March 1930, Page 7

AUSTRIAN’S LONG ROW

DOWN DANUBE IN BOAT TWO YEAR JOURNEY Hubert Bacho, a young Viennese sportsman, has reached Italy, after travelling in a rubber boat down the Danube from Vienna, through Budapest, Belgrade, the Black Sea and round the Greek coast, Albania and Dalmatia to Fiume, Pola, and then to Trieste. This journey lias taken him nearly five months. The boat is made after the Eskimo pattern, and is entirely covered with rubber. It weighs only 25 kilos, but can carry 300 kilos, and lias, besides oars, two small sails to use in an emergency. In the Black Sea and the Mediterranean it weathered very heavy seas, the worst for twenty years. - Altogether the waters of nine States have been traversed. Bacho is preparing a book with descriptions of his adventures and the details of all the harbours lie visited. Nowhere was he received in any but the most friendly spirit. Trieste is for him only a resting place. The remainder of the journey ! will cover Gratio, Venice, the Adriatic i coast, Spain, Portugal, the French coast, the English Channel, the Rhine, the Ludwigscanal joining it to the Danube, and finally Vienna again. The second half of the journey is expected to take two and a-half years.

SEVENTY years have passed since that day in March, 1860, when an Auckland eleven, pursu-1 ant to a challenge given and accepted, arrived in Wellington in a small coasting steamer, travelling via Nelson, to do battle with the Wellington representatives in the first interprovincial cricket match ever played in the Dominion. Auckland thus goes down in history as the pioneer of travelling interprovincial teams. Today, at Wellington, the latest of these battles between tlie two rivals was commenced. It promises to be a struggle of struggles, for Auckland, at present holder of the Plunket Shield, requires a complete victory to retain the trophy. 11l an article in the “Dominion” recently, “Old Timer” recalls many of the stirring battles which have been fought between the two provinces during the past 70 years. He continues: “Auckland won that first match, by four wickets. Three years later Wellington visited Auckland, and in one day suffered a heavy defeat by 107 runs, Auckland making S2 and 09 (Lantham 30, the only double in the second innings), and Wellington 22 and 22. The highest score in Wellington’s two innings was 6 by L. Buck. Then years went by before the teams met again, this time on the Basin Reserve, Auckland winning by three wickets after an exciting finish. When the seventh wicket fell 29 runs were still required, and Cotton and Buckland hit them off without further loss. The Auckland tour on this occasion was a comprehensive one. Following the match against Wellington in 1863, the game had languished to some extent, but the advent of some good cricketers from England, and the discovery of good talent in the country, brought about .a revival. Following this game there was an interval of ten years before the prov- | inces met again, and once more it was \ Auckland which did the touring, playing, as before. Otago, Canterbury, Wellington, and Nelson. Otago, Wellington. and Nelson were beaten, but Can-

terbury won by 27 runs, Thus in the first twenty-two years four matches had been played, and Auckland had won them all. Among Auckland’s great players were W. W. Robinson, a tall man with a curly black beard, a slow left-hand bowler, free bat. and great captain: W. F. Buckland, a fast bowler; Bob Yates, a solid batsman, better known to the younger generation for his work on the Auckland Domain, and W. E. Barton, an Englishman from Cranleigh School, and a fine batsman. In ISSS Auckland once again visited Wellington, by far the highest-scoring game to date resulting in a draw. Auckland made 224 and 174, and Wellington 145 and 154 for five wickets. Barton made S 3 in Auckland’s first innings, and Stafford <33 in the second, while R. Blackloek made 51 and 50 for Wellington. Two years later Wellington paid its second visit to Auckland in twenty-five years, and was soundly beaten, by an innings and 101 runs. Auckland made 256 (D. Lynch 81, Yates 50), and Wellington 81 and 74 ;