Sherpa Tensing visit

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32679, 7 August 1971, Page 2

Sherpa Tensing visit

Sherpa Tensing, who in 1953 climbed Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary, will arrive in Christchurch next Thursday for a five-day visit. He will be accompanied by his wife, and by Sir Edmund Hillary.

The Tensings arrived In Auckland yesterday to begin their first visit to New Zealand, and were greeted by Sir Edmund Hillary and Lady Hillary, with whom they are staying in Auckland. Their one-month visit has been arranged by the Himalayan Trust, the body which administers the assistance which has been given for the last 10 years to Sherpa schools and a hospital. Mr Tensing is director of field training for the Indian

Government’s Himalayan Institute at Darjeeling, but he recently has been living in the United States. Air New Zealand has assisted in bringing Mr and Mrs Tensing from the United States. In Christchurch, the Tensings will stay with Mr and Mrs N. Hardie, in Cashmere. They and Sir Edmund Hillary will visit three Christchurch secondary schools which have been raising money for Nepalese clinics: Christchurch Boys’ High School, Avonside Girls* High School, and Aranui High School. They also will visit two factories which have, for many years, supplied goods to Himalayan expeditions, and they will be taken on the Waimakariri River in jet boats, and will visit a Canterbury farm. EVEREST FILMS At 8.15 pm. on Sunday, August 15, Mr Tensing and Sir Edmund Hillary will attend a public showing in the Avon Theatre of the 1953 Everest film, “The Conquest of Everest,”-and a 1970 film of a Japanese skier performing spectacular feats on the slopes of Everest, “Ski-ing down Everest.” They also will show slides of the final stages of the ascent of Mount Everest Proceeds from the evening will go to the Himalayan Trust’s hospital fund.

After leaving Christchurch, Mr and Mrs Tensing and Sir Edmund Hillary will visit Dunedin, Mount Cook, Wanaka and Queenstown. No serious mountaineering ■is contemplated, but Mr Tensing will be flown through many mountain areas, and he will ski on some of the main runs in Otago.