Tramping By Decimals

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30998, 2 March 1966, Page 15

Tramping By Decimals

currency has been in the news lately, and the approach of New Zealand’s own conversion to this coinage is even being noted and planned for by various local sporting clubs. The Christchurch Tramping Club, one of the largest in New Zealand, is preparing its members for the change well in advance by listing in its monthly newsletters the cost in shillings, and also in their dollar and cent equivalent, of travel or bus fares for each of its week-end trips. But to add to the recent controversies the dub has also printed five suggested designs for the decimal coins which are at least highly typical of some of our back-country regions.

The one-cent design is of a mosquito and the two-cents depicts a gnarled, thorny matagouri bush, one of the banes of trampers in various valleys in the Canterbury back-country. The five-cent coin bears a tent camp and the 10-cent a mischievous kea about to sink its powerful beak into some unwary tramper’s toe. This should appeal to those persons who consider that native birds should be retained on the new coins. The 20-cent coin features' a tramper with heavilyladen pack tramping in torrential rain in some obscure valley. The 50-cent coin, appealing in its simplicity, has a ponderous, heavily dickered tramping boot.