TRAVELLING LIGHT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1939, Page 17 (Supplement)

TRAVELLING LIGHT

As it was a real dry summer and no indication of rain, we did not take any covering in the way of rugs. For a tent we had a thin duck fly. I had a thin Russian leather sleeping bag weighing about two pounds. It was waterproof and was to be my house and bed. In our equipment were a single-barrelled fowling piece, some cartridges loaded with shot for birds, and some loaded with bullets for cattle or pigs, also a small axe, two billies, one to fit inside the other, one for tea and the other for stews (tea brewed in a stew billy is not nice), a certain amount of pepper and salt, a splendid piece of home-cured fat bacon, tea, sugar, two pounds of rice and a dozen shallots. I preferred these as one shallot equals two large on- . ions for flavouring purposes. We ! thought plenty of good home-made , scones;’ which were about 15 inches across and 11 inches thick, would carry better than, bread and would do much better for our purposes. Mundy had with him a large fishhook; in fact he was never without it. Fastened to a good length of stout twine, this came in handy many times, as one can nearly always get a stick to make a gaff and Mundy was a real artist at the game. We were supposed to leave the Akura Pa at 7 a.m. I was there to time. A Maori boy was going to drive us up to Kaituna in an old brake but the sun had dried the wheels so much that one of the tyres was falling off, so we had to take the old bus down to the Waipoua River and soak her for an hour before we could get started. As we were getting into the brake, Repeka, my Maori girl friend, brought me a couple of scones and said: “Taari, here is some kai for you. Grandmother showed me how to make them. They are made the same way as she used to make them for Grandfather when he went hunting.” (They were made out of pounded fern root, dried crayfish tails and pork dripping, and they were good). We got started at last. That old “geegee" had two or three shoes loose and one off. The road was up hill and very rough in those days. We arrived safely where the Kaituna Hall stands now. That was the end of the road. We evened i our swags and went down the bank to the creek where we boiled the billy for lunch, our coachman having lunch with us while his horse had a spell. After lunch we followed the Waingawa River until we crossed over to the south side. Still keeping in touch with the river we turned south-west and made for the saddle between the Pinnacle and Baldhead, where we intended to camp. Being a bit green to tramping we went steadily, but managed to get a suitable camping place. A very good night was spent.