A WOMAN’S 20,000 MILES BY AIR

Hokitika Guardian, 14 July 1928, Page 4

A WOMAN’S 20,000 MILES BY AIR

(By LADY COBHAM, who accompanied her husband, Sir Alan Cobliam, on bis 20,050 miles flight aroiind Africa.)

IVORY COAST, West Africa, April 20. As we fly Up the West Coast of Africa, past long desert coastlines, I always have the comfort of knowing that eucli day we are getting hearer home. What ages it seems since we left Rochester that morning when I said .good-bye to my babies,. Geoffrey and Michael. I don’t think they were old enough to realise that I was going away bn a long flight, aiul any little sorrows that Geoffrey might have had would soon be banished by his nanny and grandparents, who are looking after the children in our absence. , , ..... • , , Since that grey November day when I set out with mv husband I have seen much and travelled.* far, and the intimate friends that I have made throughout the flight, according to my address book, number hundreds.

No one who has not travelled by air caii imagine how different the world looks from above. Now I have seen the African continent from above as well as from the ground—the long reachse of the Nile, whose tenihle swamp areas in the .Sudan, wondciful and beautiful Uganda, and the rest—and I know that 1 have a far wider conception of the country in genera! than the individual who has never seen it from the air.

The panoramic mows of Lake \ i'toria, then our long flight right down Lake Tanganyika, crossing over the high mountains to Lake Nyassa, were so interesting as to register themselves indelibly on the memory; and gradually I became interested in following our route on the map and learning to compare our chart with the country that lay beneath us, stretched out like a gigantic map, a replica of the chart in my hand, only on a much bigger scale. T began to understand my husband’s love of exploring new routes from the air, and each day I became more interested in typing his extensive reports oil all the varying conditions that we encountered. Then came the storms and rains of Portuguese East Africa, quickly followed by the delights of South Africa, where we received such an enthusiastic reception. Everyone seemed t ’ think that I had done something marvellous h.v being the first woman t" fly all the way from England to the Capo. T failed to see what there was to he excited about, and could not understand why the average person had such extraordinary ideas about flying. "When I got among our crew on tlm next day’s journey T mused on thr subject at mv desk, looking down tlm hull of the flying boat. Conway wnhusy at the vice on the bench cleaning plugs, and at that moment, I am sure, quite oblivious of the fact tlmhe was in the air. Green, our engineer, was seated on a hunk making up his engine log-book, and if hr happened to realise that he was flying he took it as a matter of course. Bonnctt, our cinematographer. iva« intently engaged in changing film in the camera. And my husband beside mo was checking up distances on the chart and working out the speed we wore making, having just left Captain Worrall at the controls. Everyone on hoard, J realised, took the flying pari of our expedition for granted, just aa sailor would take for granted the floating of his ship. Flying is ah right, and, as my husband says, the future of air routes throughout the African continent is purely a matter of finance and organisation.