TARARUA TRAMPERS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 184, 2 May 1933, Page 10

TARARUA TRAMPERS

Mr. O’Keefe in Hospital “PARTY NEVER LOST” The injured member of the Tararua tramping party, Mr. A. H. O’Keefe, was taken to the Lewisham Hospital yesterday for rest and treatment to his head and frostbitten limbs. Mr. O'Keefe said that the party was never lost. It had an altimeter, a barometer, three compasses, and a map, and its position within a mile was; known at all times. “But for the snow on the mountains and the flooded rivers we would have been out long before,” Mr. O'Keefe said. The main concern, he added, was how to eke out the two days’ food supply they had set out with, and to conserve their strength. “Naturally, we were anxious about food,” Mr. O’Keefe said, “but apart from that we never had any doubt about getting out safely.” No deliberate indication of the route they had taken had been left for the benefit of search parties, but he said that their camp sites would have been as good a guide as anything else. Mr. O'Keefe emphasised that they were on their way out when they were seen by the Carterton trampers. They were only one and a half miles from -Mr. W. Compton’s homestead, and he thought they could have walked that distance without any great difficulty. “The Dominion” has received a donation of 10/- from “R.E.M.,” Karori. for the fund established to meet expenses incurred in the search for the four trampers. ____________