WAITED 50 YEARS TO SEE DOMINION

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 29, 29 October 1934, Page 10

WAITED 50 YEARS TO SEE DOMINION

Visitor Much Impressed Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, October 28. An English visitor at present in Christchurch bad until this month waited nearly 50 years to see New Zealand. He is a retired geography lecturer, Mr. H. gwlft, of Jersey, in the Channel Islands. In 1886 he read J. A. Fronde’s well-known book, “Oceania,” and it fired him with an enthusiasm to see New Zealand, which he still maintains near the end of his visit to the Dominion. He remarked soon after ids arrival in Christchurch that he had never had a better time in his life, and he was full of praise for the New Zealand Government Tourist Department, which arranged bis tour. Originally the chief New Zealand presented for Mr. Swift were the pink and white terraces at Tarawera, but before, he had finished the book they had been wiped out by volcanic eruption, and during his present visit he went to see the lake beneath which they now lie. The Waitomo caves impressed him more than anything he had ever seen before, afld ids visit to Mount Cook and to the Hochstetler Icefalls be said he would long remember. *

Mr. Swift’s tour was mapped out for him by the New Zealand Government Tourist Agency’s representative in London, and covers 15 days. He will conclude his visit on Tuesday; meanwhile he has been as much impressed with New Zealand’s tourist organisation as with its scenery’ and resorts. The itinerary gave him most of his time in the North Island, and he hopes to return later to see Mlford Sound, the Southern Lakes, Stewart Island, the Franz Josef Glacier, and Akaroa.