GIRLS’ ESCAPADE

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 October 1928, Page 10

GIRLS’ ESCAPADE

A TRIP TO WAIUTA

Boys are often accredited with daring escapades, but a recent well planned run away from home staged by two Westport girls of 10 or 12 years of age would withstand any challenge from the sterner sex of the same age (says the “Times”). Apparently these girls had gone thoroughly into the situation and on summing up Westport and its environs, came to the conclusion that they would be far better off at Waiuta. It was not a hasty decision, by any means, for the two girls concerned left nothing to chance.

Of course, such an escapade cannot be carried out without a confederate, and a boy of approximately their own age was let into the secret. Each girl wrote a note to her parents explaining that she was not satisfied; with the teachers at school; that home in her opinion was not what it should be and that she was “hitting for the great open spaces—on the road to adventure, success, or failure.” Whether or not Waiuta holds all these attributes is better left unsaid; anyway adventure was in their blood, they were casting off the yoke of parental control. The stage was all set and early in the morning, instead of setting off for school, it was the long white road and Waiuta on the golden horizon. The notes were entrusted to the care of the small boy with strict instructions that they were not to be delivered until six o’clock that evening. With a light heart and the other requisites for a long tramp, the girls set out over the Buller Bridge and made good time to 12-Mile. Somewhere in that vicinity they were overtaken by a lorry and the driver, seeing the young ladies making in his direction, inquired their destination and gave them a lift to Reefton.

But there is ever a chance of a flaw in every well-thought-out plan. The lorry was passed by another vehicle in which was seated a gentleman who happened to be a neighbour of the runaways. He looked rather astonished at the two girls making for Reefton and subsequently reported his discovery on his arrival at Westport. The police at Reefton were communicated with and there the little escapade came to an end. Waiuta was still the unattained goal.

The seekers of adventure are once more in Westport pursuing the humdrum procedure of everyday existence. All the same, it was a great adventure.