TROUBADOUR AWHEEL

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 285, 28 August 1933, Page 10

TROUBADOUR AWHEEL

60,000 Miles on Bicycle AUSTRALIAN’S ADVENTURE ' With a stoutly-built but' battered bicycle that is about ten years older than himself, Eric Malpas, a twenty-four-year-oid Australian, has almost completed a 60,000-mile journey about the world. Four years ago Mr. Malpas left iMeLbourne in the true spirit of the ancient wandering minstrel, determined to adventure afar and earn an itinerant living by singing as he went. A few days ago this “globe-trotting troubadour,” as he calls himself, arrived in Wellington from overseas, home ward bound. He has visited nianyl countries in his wanderings, having sung his way through Ceylon, Arabia, Egypt, the British Isles, France, Canada, and the United States. He has worked his pas-, sage on the sea, and on the land' his voice, has managed to earn him just enough for his needs, and those of his bicycle. The bicycle itself lias been a not inconsiderable expense. It has been ridden over 37,000 -miles of .land, in spite of its age, and has required 34 tires, seven sets of pedals, and fixe saddles. On its handlebar is a rabbit’s foot, for luck. Mr, Malpas worked his passage over from America on the Port Fremantle, which arrived in Wellington on Friday, and he Intends, to end his troubadouring days when’he reaches Melbourne. In the meantime, however, he is'continuing in the same manner as at the beginning of his rambles, for during the week-end he has been singing from his repertoire of Australian and Irish ballads, together with some of his own making, in the city streets, clad in an open khaki shirt, English shorts, and topee. ; He began his adventures by being more than two days without water in the Central Australian desert. He discovered and took baJk to Sydney parts of the aeroplane in which Smith and Shears, the Australian aviators, crashed in Northern Australia. He lunched with the revue star Gracie Fields, in London. In America he became a centre of Taxas publicity, when news appeared in the papers that he had been ordered out of El Paso because the police had bahned his shorts. Speaking of the hospitality he had encountered on his travels, he told “The Dominion” yesterday that he found Aberdonians the most generous people among all he met. -