Anxiety Felt For Missing Trampers

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30338, 14 January 1964, Page 10

Anxiety Felt For Missing Trampers

(New Zealand Press Association) INVERCARGILL, January 13. Four experienced forestry workers will enter the region west of Lake Te Anau tomorrow to make a quick ground search for four overdue Auckland trampers. Two air searches today failed to find any trace of the party. The police in Invercargill are concerned about the party, which was to have been picked up from the South Fiord of Lake Te Anau on January 8.

Those overdue are Messrs Warwick Brown, aged 23, leader of the party; Tony Nelson, aged 28, Jim WittenHanna, aged 30, all of Auckland, and Kerry O’Halloran, aged 24, of Takapuna. All are members of the Auckland Tramping Club. They entered the region on December 27 to walk from the Middle Fiord of Lake Te Anau to the South Fiord. A launch took them to the south-west arm of the Middle Fiord and they planned to walk several miles up the Doon river before turning west and then later heading south. This would have taken them outside the prohibited takahe preservation area which they would have skirted on their walk south. But the police believe the men may have, through bad weather, taken a wrong turning. Boot prints have been found further up the Doon river than the point where the party intended turning off. The police have not disregarded the possibility that some other party may have caused the prints and tonight they appealed to anyone who has recently been in the area to get in touch with them. The prints were found by a tramping party on December 29. If the prints were made by the overdue party, it had deviated from its indicated route in the first few days, Senior Sergeant J. G. Williams said. In that case the

men would be further north than they intended. The four searchers will be flown to Lake McKinnon tomorrow morning. They will move to the Robin saddle and split into two parties. One will search south, the other north along the intended route of the trampers. An alternative route will also be searched. The four men, each with a wide knowledge of ttie region, will look for signs of the trampers. It is hoped their search will not take long. If the search party fails to find the trampers or find any signs that they have passed through, the boot marks on the Doon river will be investigated. Searches today by police and officiate of the Fiordland National Park Board in an amphibian aircraft disclosed no signs of the men. One search, lasting more than an hour, was made at 11 a.m. The aircraft was in the air for more than two hours early tonight in the hope of finding campfire smoke. Police say the trampers carried food for 14 days.