FROM THE 'PLANE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 88, 15 April 1933, Page 9

FROM THE 'PLANE.

EXPLORATION TRIP.

BACK COUNTRY LANDING.

DUCKS AND SANDFLIES,

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this day.

Several hundred miles of back country in South Westland were traversed by Mr. J. C. Mercer, instructor to the Canterbury Aero Club, in the second aerial prospecting flight which he has completed in the course of a month. One of his landings was at a site where no other aeroplane had ever been—ls miles up the Arawliata River, close to the foot of Mount Aspiring. In company with his-brother, Mr. C. B. Mercer, a mining engineer, Mr. .Mercer left the Wigram Aerodrome last Monday afternoon and spent the night at Hokitika, flying on the next day to Okuru, tlic tiny' settlement furthest south along the coast, where mails and supplies have to be packed in over many miles of bush tracks, or landed from an occasional visiting vessel. Okuru liad previously been' Mr. Mercer's furthest south landing ground, but on the photographs he took on his last trip he had seen places that looked promising, and this time he investigated one of them. It was a flat, grassy field beside the Arawliata River, many miles away from any settlements or farms. Mr. Mercer stated, on his • return tp Christchurcli, that anyone who did not fly to this place can reach it only by riding horses up the river. On shinglespits in the river are paradise ducks in hundreds. "We chased some of them in the Moth," Mr. Mercer said, "but on the ground we couldn't get near them. Almost from the beaches on the coast south of Okuru the hills rise up,, and only a few miles inland they reach 4000, POOK. and 8000 feet, - On . their. sides.

through the hush, the aerial tourist sees streams and waterfalls, and, as the hills become mountains there are glaciers. On this ,trip Mr. Mercer saw the head of Andy's glacier. At the new Arawhata landing ground, besides paradise ducks, the visitors found another, and less pleasing form of life. Sandflies gathered in clouds. "There is a mountain down there called Sandfly Hill," Mr. Mercer said. "There is a big g&p in the bush there, and the Okuru people say the sandflies ate it out." But the scenery, he says more than compensates for the insects. From the Arawhata ground Mr. Mercer flew back over the 120 miles to the Franz Josef Glacier, where he called.