ACROSS AMERICA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 259, 2 November 1933, Page 5

ACROSS AMERICA.

TOUR IN "BABY" CAR.

PERILS OF THE ROCKIES.

«NO SPIKA DA INGLESE."

Three crossings of the American Continent in a British "baby" car of seven horse-power have been made by Mr. and Mrs. G. A. Woods, who are now visiting Auckland. It says much for the staunchness of British workmanship that in 40,000 miles of travelling, under divers conditions, their car has never once been delayed by mechanical trouble, and only once by a puncture, though it is now running on only its second set of tyres. "Any New Zealander going to England will find that it will well repay him to ship his car across the Pacific, drive across America, and ship it to England," 6aid Mr. Woods, in an interview. "Not only will he see more of the country than he would from the train, but with petrol at 5d a gallon, he will do it much more cheaply." Everywhere in America, the "baby"! car, "Bunny" they called it, was an j object of great interest, few Americans ] ever having seen such a type. Whenever the owners stopped, they were surrounded by a curious crowd, and sometimes, after passing through a town," tliey were escorted for miles along the road by a fleet of cars, the drivers all busy shouting questions at tbem. So embarrassing did such constant attention become that Mrs. Woods took refuge behind the phrase "No spika da Inglese" whenever they were questioned, while her husband maintained an uncomprehending silence. Comparison of Routes. Oil their first trip, Mr. and Mrs. Woods took the southerly route from New York through Tennessee, Texas, and New Mexico to Los Angeles, and thence northward to Vancouver, a total distance of 5404 miles. From Vancouver they came to New Zealand. On their way back to England, they; landed again at Van-

couver, and took a more northerly route through Salt Lake City and eastward to Chicago, where the great Chicago Fair was being made ready. This, says Mr. Woods, was not nearly as pleasant a route as the southerly one, though the roads were perfect. For hundreds of miles, they passed tTirough desolate vvastes of sand, dotted here and there with the squalid shacks of povertystricken desert farmers. Even this, however, was not as bad, in the opinion of Mr. Woods, as the Canadian route, which they followed on their way to New Zealand on their present visit. Landing at Montreal, they ran southward to Chicago to visit the World Fair, and then, after passing through North Dakota, recrossed the Canadian border into Manitoba, bound for Vancouver. In Winnipeg they found a temperature of 50 degrees below zero. "It was so cold that our noses froze, so that we could hardly breathe," said Mr. Woods. "The ice formed so thick and hard on the windscreen that the wiper could not move, and I had to drive with my head out the side of the car." Lonely Regions of Canada. Canadian roads Mr. Woods described I as "terrible," but he ascribed this mainly to the fact that vast tracts of country have as yet insufficient population to bear the cost of road-making. "For two or three hundred miles at a stretch, we saw neither house nor human being," says Mr. Woods. "In one day's driving, from dawn to dark, we did not sight a single car on the road. Through such uninhabited places as these, the road is !barely distinguishable from the surroundI ing prairie. "Crossing the Rockies was a wonderful experience," Mr. Woods said. "The road is very bad, but the wonder is that there is a road at all. It winds along shelves cut out of sheer precipices, dives into tunnels and climbs upward through the clouds. The scenery' is beyond description. Everything is on too huge a scale to be pictured." In the -Rockies, the travellers had the most exciting experiences of all their touring. One day they aroused the interest, or perhaps the appetite, of a grizzly bear, a beast bigger than their car, that came out of the timber beside the road and loped after them. Mr. Woods admits that he drove for the next couple of miles with his foot hard down on the accelerator, though speed on that road was probably more dangerous than was Bruin. That night the car slipped r of£ lie '£>ad and hung precariously

balanced on the edge of a precipice. They spent the night in the car, not daring to get out, or even to move, lest the car topple over into the gorge. A welcome tractor found them next morning and dragged them back to safety. Later they passed through a thunderstorm, during which the lightning played all around their car and the echoing volleys amongst the mountains nearly deafened them. During the next few months Mr. and Mrs. Woods intend to tour both islands of New Zealand, and on their way back to England intend to cross the American Continent again.