Reporter’s diary Not pointless

Press, 30 April 1981, Page 2

Reporter’s diary

Not pointless

IF A SIGN is meant to draw attention, then this one, complete with bright flowers and a red toenail, is certainly eye catching. It has become a local talking point for drivers on. Kirk Road and Newtons Road. Overheated TWO CHRISTCHURCH lawyers caught the first plane to Dunedin one morning, last week, to attend one day’s session of the annual conference of the Law Society. After landing at Momoha Airport they opted for a rental car to Dunedin instead of the bus. It was 8 a.m. and staff at the rental car depot said there was no time to check the car. This did not concern the legal pair and they headed off over the Taieri plains and into the

hills. “There’s a tunny smell,” one practitioner complained. “Nonsense,” said the barrister refusing a brief. The kilometres clicked away, the temperature gauge raced over the danger zone and, finally, the driver agreed there might be a “minor” temperature problem. He pulled into a roadside garage nearly half-way to Dunedin. The garage proprietor stared in disbelief, followed, in turn, by passenger and driver — there was no radiator. How the car managed the distance without a complete engine seizure mystified everyone.' First for N.Z. A FORMER Mount Cook Airlines pilot, Captain Parker-B. Mudge, an American now living in. Queenstown, has done something special for his adopted country. On April 15 after landing in a small aircraft at the North Pole he| placed the New Zealand flag “on target”. Captain Mudge, well known for his flights to the South Pole, has told a Cust resident, Captain Geoff Williams, that the North Pole landing made him the third man to have walked on the ice at both poles.

Chips off block GRADUATES of the Forestry School at the University of Canterbury will come from all over the world for the School’s tenth anniversary on May 8. This is the first reunion for graduates of the four-year degree course which has already made a prestigious contribution to knowledge of a vital natural resource. Midnight flit NOISY footsteps woke a North Beach resident about midnight recently. Loud knocking on the door followed. Opening it she found a policeman. Was he chasing a burglar? — “No, I wished I was, as I’d probably catch him,” he replied. What the strong arm of the law and two local lads were seeking turned out to be a horse which had taken up temporary residence in the lady’s back garden. Twenty minutes later the horse was still roaming the garden. He then made a dash for freedom and' was last seen heading down Keyes Road towards Brighton. No-one seems to know where, it came from or where it is now. 4.