BOYS' OWN COLUMN

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 129, 2 June 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOYS' OWN COLUMN

CROSS-COUNTRY IN THE RANGES. PETER PAN MAKES A DISCOVERY. Dear Boys, We are forever discovering new thinos and I had one of ray greatest £u:-pr£scs last -week-end. Four cf us were out 03 one of our periodical week-end hikes. For a long time we had been taking life easy and our hikes had developed into week-end rambles entailing but little physical effort. The days when we set out on cross-country jaunts had received a severe setback after that auspicious occasion when, with the rail head within sight, we had taken a "short cut." These' days it is rather dangerous to mention short cuts in the presence of certain members of our party who simply snort their disgust and entire disapproval of short cuts in general, and one particular one in detail. Sufficient to say that that short cut was a decidedly long one, and after a real "pig hunt" through vile undergrowth the insult of seeing the tail light of the train sliding out of the station was by no means lightened by the thought of the extra eight miles we should have to tramp to -■-ecure the only transport then available to the city, whose twinkling lights danced before our eyes. But all this is getting away from the point. Last week-end we "bivvied" at a particularly ungetatable place in the ranges, and, following on a series of tactful suggestions, the party at last agreed to follow me in an effort to cut across country. Six miles cross-country work is never a simple matter in these ranges of ours, but Tamatea, the traditional "fairy godmother" of the olden-day Maoris, must have been with us, for not only was the going good, but v/e caught the train—and with time to spare too. But about my discovery. We paused for a breather half-way up a r-ep climb, and there at my feet nestled a group of blue-purple growths unlike anything I had seen before. Beyond the fact that the growth was a fungus of some kind I could not even guess what it was. Bright and early I waited for Hine nga Tarutaru, the lady of the flowers. "Hello Peter Pan, what have you there?" she said, and when I produced my treasure, "Oh, that's the finger fungus. A good find; ePter Pan—l have only seen it twice myself." I will not pass on to you the ugly £sf3 — scientific names, and although my find *"* "**^ was not entirely rare, I had made a f,ls (1 + worthwhile discovery—and perhaps supplied a few lines of interesting copy for V/ 6^^ my readers. -ki^ 0^

MTOLD BY READERS^

Original Stories under this heading ere invited for our Fortnightly Competition.