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Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 266, 6 August 1929, Page 9

It used to be a wonder to the “new chum” how the experienced bushman used to go away for weeks at a time exploring the mountain fastnesses without a tent to sleep in. An echo of this was heard this week in Auckland when a bushman, lured to the city by the hope of getting high wages, found disillusionment when he saw too many men already here unable to get work. He sought out the relief office, after he had had “a bit of a flutter” with the savings he had brought with him, and asked for a bushman’s outfit, so that he might go back to the country. When asked what a bushman’s outfit was composed of he replied that there would be an axe, costing about 12s. (id., a nest of four billies, costing about “four bob,” and a camp oven, costing about 55., and that would do him, as he had his blankets. “How about a tent?” asked the relieving officer. “I ain’t no new chum bushman,” lie said. “When Igo into the bush I like to travel light.” The experienced bushman knows that a tent is a needless encumbrance so long as there are plenty of pungas about. “I’m longing to get back to a punga whare, wfcere there are no draughts like you have in boarding-houses," said the bushman. “When I build my punga house it will have only one door, and at the other end there will be my fireplace for burning bur km."