Searchers Find Two Boys Lost Two Days In Bush

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31678, 14 May 1968, Page 1

Searchers Find Two Boys Lost Two Days In Bush

Two Christchurch boys who had been lost in bush-clad hills near Loburn since Saturday were found about 1 pan. yesterday, about threequarters of a mile from where they were last seen. They were unharmed.

They were two of six members of the Third Christchurch Boys’ Brigade Company who had set out to walk along the Blowhard cattle track. Three of the boys returned to the Birch Hill camp that evening. Deerstalkers found another, Mark Williams, aged 11, of 210 Knowles Street, unharmed on Sunday afternoon. The two boys found yesterday are John Edge, aged 12,

of 238 Knowles Street, and Vivian White, aged 13, of 15 Bishop Street At his home last evening, after he had had a meal, John Edge said: “We all went up to the trig station. Mark went one way, the other three went the other, and we went straight up the river. “We went on and then came back. That’s when we knew we were lost.” He said that they spent Saturday night on the hillside. They cuddled together to try to keep warm but they slept only for about an hour. The boys had one parka so they each put an arm into a sleeve and tried to pull it round them. In the morning they could see snow on some hills and a flat area which seemed to have a small airstrip. They turned in the opposite direction, found a river and climbed up a hillside, At the top they could see nothing. “We found another river and followed it but it got too deep," said John. “We then turned and tried to get to the flat land but it got dark again. Saw Lights “We slept there. It was windy. We saw lights on the mountain during the night. “After we awoke we walked on. We heard a Harvard, but didn’t think much of it at first It kept circling, so we tried to get into the open

where he could see us,” he said. “We also saw the helicopter, but we were in a gully. We tried to get up to the top, but he was on the other side then. “We heard voices, we shouted, and they told us to stay where we were. “Two men found us. They gave us some biscuits. We weren’t allowed to eat too much. Then we walked to the bottom of the river where we had a can of peaches. The men took us up to the track, where we got on horses,” he said. Apart from a few scratches to his hands, he was unhurt, he said. Search Begins When the second day of the search began yesterday morning the police reinforced parties already in the area. The first truck of searchers left the Central Police Station about 5 a.m. Soon after 10 a.m. about 100 men in 10 parties were in the area and two policemen on horses travelled along the Blowhard track with loudhailers. Two parties had been sent in from Lees Valley and two other parties had camped overnight. The search was made south of the track and to the headwaters of the Garry and Pioneer Rivers to the north.

Royal New Zealand Air Force Harvards made twohour sweeps. Graham Stewart and Company, Ltd, had a helicopter ready for a test flight and it too made a sweep. Parents’ Thanks The boys’ parents last evening expresed their admiration for the work of the search parties. They thanked the police, Army, Air Force, Amateur Emergency Radio Corps, and members of the Christchurch Tramping Club and the Federated Mountain CJubs. The police thanked aircraft owners and operators at Rangiora and Christchurch for offers of aircraft

Apart from the men and equipment it supplied, the Army also offered the service; of a fully trained company from Burnham which will later go to Vietnam.