LOST IN THE BUSH.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 11, 13 January 1912, Page 2

LOST IN THE BUSH.

THREE DAYS WITHOUT FOOD

IN THE UREWERA COUNTRY

YOUNG MAN'S TRYING EXPERI-

ENCE.

There is probably no wilder and more desolate, country in New Zeaj land'to-day than the region between ; Gisborne and Opotiki beyond Motu, i where the tribe of Rua reigns. It i is the Urewera Country, with its high i mountain ranges cleft by huge chasms and clothed, in the densest bush. It is almost uninhabited, and there are only a few roughi tracks through it piercing the forest and skirting precipices and climbing sheer ridges. It is crossed by the bridletrack linking the Bay of Plenty and Poverty Bay districts. Through it the Gisborne-Opotiki railway will some day pass, but at present it is virtually a No Man's Land almost without settlement. It was in this primeval wilderness that a young medical student of Otago University just before the Christmas holidays was lost for three days in the bush, and after a trying experience managed to escape with his life. He told the story to a Wellington Post representative on his way home to Dunedin. THE BEGINNING OF THE LONG RIDE. "It was on Friday morning about '10 o'clock I started from Opotiki for j the long ride over the bridle-track to! Motu. It rained all day and hailed as I struck into, the mountains. It is a very lonely, country, as there is not a. single house between ■"Papa-"1 moa and' Motu. The bridle-track is terrible. / In places it is hewn out of the solid rock for a mile at a stretch-, and there is just room for horse and rider. One slip and you would be over into the gully below—so steep and so deep that you can't see the bottom of it from the track. I had an axe with me and I needed it to cut away trees that had fallen across the track. As I travelled along in the storm, I could hear trees crashing over one another as they fell into the abyss, uprooted by the gale. It was bush, bush all along, full of pigeons and pigs. Now and again the big boars were bold enough to come on the track, and they almost scared the life out of the horse with their snorting and sniffing.

OVERTAKEN BY DARKNESS

"I rode as hard.as I could, to get out of the bush, if possible, before the day was done. But darkness came on early with the perpetual rain. I came to a place where there were two tracks. One wcait straight ahead and the other turned to the left. The side track seemed to be newly cut, so thinking this was the continuation of the track along _which I had come already, I took it, although the horse jibbed and wanted to go straight ahead. For an hour or so I pushed on, and then I discovered I was on a branch track down to the old road. It vras now too dark and too late to turn back, so I went on a little, looking to see if there might be a bush camp or a settler's wharc about somewhere. There was nothing but bush. WITHOUT MOON OR STARS. "It was now midnight, and too dark to travel on such a rough track without moon or stars'to help me pick out the way. So I pulled; into the bush and searched for a hollow tree. I plunged far into the bush, but I could not find one. I was too dog-tired to go any further, so I pulled the saddle off the horse, and, after tying the reins to my arm 1 lay down to "sleep. I could not sleep. I was too hungry, cold, wet, and miserable. LOST FOR ANOTHER DAY. "When daylight came next morning I knew I was lost. Still, the horse had to be fed, so I travelled further and further into the bush looking for grass. I found a patch or two for him, but I had no food for myself. While I wandered in this way the day passed. I had to spend another night in the bush. I felt terribly hungry, as I had had nothing to eat for a day mid a-half. I lay down again, on the saddle, tvud spent the night awake in misery. COLD, WET, AND -HUNGRY. "On Sunday .the' hungry feeling wore off, and I again tried to find the track, but. again without success. 1 could not get out into, the open to

find the lay of the country. Th«^ rain came down in bucketsf ul. on Sunday night, and 1 felt: so despondent and utterly wretched that I prayed a tree would fall on me and end it all. All Monday I wandered on, searching for the track, and at last, about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, when I was just about done, I struck it all right. I was glad. THE TRACK AT LAST. "I kept to it all night, and early after midnight I saw something white in the distance. I took it for a cowshed, and made up my mind to pass the night there. When I reached it I found it was a- house. I knocked" and kicked at the door and rattled at the windows, but got no answer. I went round to the back door andl opened it, and shouted at the top of my voice. There was no answer. I" unsaddled my horse and left him in the yard and went inside. I heard" a clock ticking in the next room, and groping my way in the darkness, I fouad it and a box of matched beside it. I lit a candle and inspected! the house. There was a nice bed in, one of the rooms, and it was not long before I was sound asleep in it. I awoke early next morning, made n. fire and dried my clothes, and had a feed1 of seeded raisins—all the food' I could! find about. Then I caught my horse and rode on towards Motu, where I had the first decent meal I had had for nearly four days. That, is all. - The rest of the way to Gisborne nothing happened, but I am just up from a bad attack of rheumatism, through tfie "four days' exposure in the busb.."

The following appeared in om Powa iMitton last issue: —