LONG CYCLE TOUR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 6, 8 January 1942, Page 9

LONG CYCLE TOUR

WELLINGTON BOYS

ARRIVAL AT HAMILTON

(0.C.) HAMILTON, January 7. "This tour is part of a large-scale experiment to try out the possibilities of forming a Dominion Youth Movement, whereby boys would be able to spend their holidays seeing the country cheaply, keeping themselves in firstclass physical condition, and at a minimum of.expense to their parents," commented Mr. C. L. Cato, secretary of the Lower Hutt V.M.C.A., who arrived in Hamilton last night with 20 Wellington boys in the course of a cycling tour of the North Island. The boys are all secondary school lads from Wellington and they looked remarkably fit and healthy. The party left Wellington on Boxing Day, travelling through Masterton to Palmerston North, and thence through to Waii ouru.

The journey to Hamilton was made via Tokaanu, Taupo, and Rotorua, and they travelled from Atiamuri to Hamilton —68 miles —in the one day. After resting at the Hamilton V.M.C.A., where Mr. Cato was general secretary some years ago, the party will return to Wellington via Waitomo, New Plymouth, and Otaki, and is due to arrive at Lower Hutt on January 15.

Mr. Cato said that the trip would cost approximately £5 a head for a full three weeks' holiday taking in all the important scenic attractions of the North Island. Each boy carried a waterproof sleeping-bag and was prepared to bivouac in the open but, actually, two out of every three nights they had spent under cover. They bought one good hot meal a day at a restaurant or hotel, and cooked their own breakfasts in three billies and three frying-pans. Lunch or tea, as the case may be, was carried with them and eaten en route.

* Knocked down by a car in Miramar shortly before 6 p.m. yesterday, John Martin, a schoolboy, of 105 Inglis Street, Seatoun, received a head inI jury and concussion, and was taken [to hospital by the Free Ambulance.

A fall of about ten feet at a Petone factory this morning resulted in Mr. S. Matthews, a storeman, of Owen Street, Belmont, breaking his right arm. The Free Ambulance took him to hospital.