“ARE YOU THERE?”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 24 March 1926, Page 9

“ARE YOU THERE?”

. .NORTH TO SPEAK TO SOUTH.. . CONNECTION BEING MADE. By Telegraph—Press Association. BLENHEIM, March 23. The work of laying the new Cook Strait cable, which is to afford telephonic communication an ail hours of tlie dav and night between the North and South Islands, was commenced under the most favourable conditions. The Government steamer Tutaneltai, which has been pressed into service as a cable shin steamer, is in a position about half a mile from the shore at the entrance to Blind river and paid out over her stern the shore end of the cable, which is much heavier in construction than the main portion of the great artery. As the cable reached the water it was buoyed up at every fifty feet by barrels, so that it floated along the surface of the water like a great sea serpent. When sufficient had been paid out to reach the shore the floating cabin was towed to ihe beach by a motor boat, the surface boat carrying 1 lit* great rope of wires through a light surf- to within twenty yards of the shore, where a rope was attached and the cable was dragged up on to the beach by two teams of four horses. The end of the cable was made fast to a heavy log and sunk about six feet deep into the sand. This will serve as a mooring until a permanent anchor can he constructed. The whole work of bringing the cable ashore and anchoring it occupied rather less than an hour and a half, and the arrangements were .so perfectly thought out, and so well executed that the job was carried out without the slightest hitch. The weather was perfect, and the landing was described by ol'ticials as tiie best yet effected on the New Zealand coast.