LOST ON THE TARARUAS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1922, Page 5

LOST ON THE TARARUAS.

NO TRACE OF MISSING MAN, SEARCHERS SHORT OF FOOD. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Carterton, Last Night. \ There is no trace of the young man named Kime, who is lost on the Tararuas. Mr. Maxton, secretary of the tourist track, reports that Constable Gregor and Mr. Allen left Greytown to-day to send help to the search parties. Tonight a telegram was received that the searchers are very short of food, which they required to be sent to the Mt. Hector track at once. Arrangements were at once made to dispatch a good supply of bread, butter, tinned meat, sugar, etc., in charge of Messrs. F. Brooks and W. Day, and it is expected they would reach Bassett’s hut tonight and the Tauherenikau hut toi

Air. Maxton has received word that a party of searchers left Mastertan without taking the precaution of communicating with the Greytown polic© or the secretary of the Mt. Hector; track, and it is feared now that the huts are overcrowded and provisional short.

Two Post and Telegraph employees, Kime and Bellons, decided last week to walk over the Tararua range, via Mt. Hector. Both failed to return when expected, but Bollons was fortunate* enough, after terrible experiences, daring which he was completely lost on a false spur, to reach Tauherenikau where he was found by a search party wrapped in an old sail cloth in a semiconscious condition, almost frozen with cold, famished with hunger, foot- sore, and completely exhausted. According to his thrilling narrative, had the search party been delayed another 24 hours, he is sure it is only his dead body they would have found. From about midday on Saturday, when he parted company with Kime to go ahead and get a fir*-, going at Alpha hut, until midnight on ■ Tuesday when he was found, all the sustenance he had was a small quantity of milk and a much smaller quantity of Bovril and a little brandy which he fortunately retained in his possession. Kime has not been seen or hear&z of since midday on Saturday, when. Bollons left him to go and prepare n, fire at Alpha hut.