German Hitch-hiker Arrives In City

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30938, 20 December 1965, Page 8

German Hitch-hiker Arrives In City

A young German hitchhiker, who originally started off on a four-month trip •round the Mediterranean, arrived in Christchurch on Friday after having travelled through Europe, the Middle

East, South-east Asia, Australia and moat of New Zealand. He is Wolfgang Hollmer, a 22-yearold compositor and commercial artist from Cologne. Mr Hollmer left Cologne on January 5, 1964, with £2OO and hiitch-hiked to Italy and then to North Africa. When

he was returning through the Lebanon his money ran out He got a Job as a lift driver and, with the money he saved, decided to continue on around tire world. Mr Hoiimer, who to an only son. said his parents were not pleased with Ms traveiUng but he wrote to them once a week to let them know where he was. "Sometimes they must wonder where my next letter to going to come from," he mid. Curry Toe Hot He was ahis to adopt Mm■elf easily to local foods, he said. His worst experience with food was on an Indian ship bound from Madras to Penang. The curry was too bot for the 20 hikers on the ship. They bought Jam and 50 loaves of bread wMch lasted them 10 days. Young New Zealanders who wanted to Mtch-hike afaould start la Asia as travel, food and accommodation were cheap there, said Mir Hollmer, who will spend Christmas in Nelson. He will then go to Auckland and later travel to Fiji, Tonga, tire United States and Canada. He hopes to be back in Cologne for Christmas next year.