TWO YEARS' TRAMP

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 205, 29 August 1936, Page 11

TWO YEARS' TRAMP

A CHAMPION WALKER.

PLANS ANOTHER TOUR.

EUROPE TO AUSTRALIA,

(Special.—By Air Mail.)

LONDON, August 8,

Mr. Nat Mercer, who claims to be the world's champion long-distance walker, isplanning another hike through Europe to Australia. He expects to take two years on the journey. Already he has walked 4435 miles in Australia, 1000 miles in New Zealand, and about 2000 miles in Canada, India and China.

Mr. Mercer, who is 29, used to be a window dresser in a London store. Now he earns his living by walking. Firms pay him to smoke their cigarettes, eat their chocolate, drink their milk, and wear their shoes. He became a hobo seven years ago after a tiff with a girl. "I shall never get married," he said this week; "I shall just go on walking. My ambition is to cover the whole world 011 foot. Now lam walking round England and Scotland, and after that, planning a trip to Australia acioss Europe, which I expect will take me two years. My average hop is 45 to 50 miles a day. When lam crossing by boat I do 20 miles round the decks, with a pedometer strapped to my leg, just to keep fit, you know. I could never do an oilice job now. This open-ail life lias got me." This tall, broad-shouldered, bronzed hiker is known in many of the countries he has visited as "the wandering Jew.'