Wanganella Master To Promote N.Z.

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30226, 3 September 1963, Page 14

Wanganella Master To Promote N.Z.

(Neto Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL. Sept. 2. The master of the Wanganella, now a hostel ship moored in Deep Cove, Captain F. A. Simpson, will, when he returns to Australia, endeavour to promote the use of Doubtful and Milford Sounds by cruise ships. Captain Simpson has been master of the Wanganella since she was sold by Huddart Parker, Ltd., to the Hang Fung Shipping Company, of Hong Kong. During that time the ship has done many Pacific cruises, calling at places like Fiji, Tonga, Noumea, sailing from and returning to Sydney. He said cruises from Sydney to Doubtful Saund, up the coast and into Milford Sound, up to tire Marlborough Sounds and into Wellington, from there to Mount Maunganui, where passengers could travel to Rotorua and rejoin the ship at Auckland, ■nd back to Sydney, would

“sell like hot cakes’’ if promoted on the bases of the sounds.

Captain Simpson said he was vastly impressed by what he had seen sailing into Doubtful Sound last Thursday. He said he could not believe his eyes. He said that he was ignorant of the beauty of the sounds.

“All you see of New Zealand in publicity posters overseas is Maoris in grass skirts, geysers and so on. Why they don’t plug this angle I’ll never know,” he said.

Captain Simpson said hundreds of Australian young men and women saved throughout the year to take cruises in the two weeks holidays they got each year. A cruise of the type he outlined would be just long enough to fit in. “Thousands of them would break their necks to see scenery like this,” said Captain Simpson, as he boarded the ship’s motor-launch to be taken all over the sound with his movie and still cameras.