Tibetan Journey

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 159, 8 July 1938, Page 3

Tibetan Journey

NEW ZEALANDERS INCLUDED. •SYDNEY, June 30. Three New Zealanders are members of a party of five which has gathered in Sydney and will leave shortly on an adventurous journey in the mountainous region bordering Tibet and China. They are Miss M. Edgar Jones, of Timaru, and Messrs K. Suter and M. Bowie. The Sydney members of the party are Miss Marie Byles, the first woman solicitor in New South Wales, and Mr R Fraser. An English woman, Miss Dora de Beer, will join the party at Rangoon, Burma. The five from Sydney and New Zealand will leave Fremantle in the steamer Gorgon on August 2. Tho expedition is expected to be away about six months. The party will travel in Chinese costume. The members believe that this will be the most comfortable way to travel and that it will make them less conspicuous. Miss Byles is small in stature, and, like most of the others, has had no experience in expeditions of this kind, although her hobby of mountaineering has been exploited in New Zealand and elsewhere. “It is only a holiday trip, and we have no definite purpose,'* she said. “We expect to met with all kinds of difficulties, but we will be prepared. “All arrangements will be made when we reach Rangoon. Special food will be carried, based on ration lists provided by leaders of similar expeditions. We will take plenty of dried fruits, and we have been advised to carry gallons of castor oil and tons of aspirins.’’ Miss Byles said she was not afraid of bandits. “We will have to trust to luck and diplomacy,'* she said. “We will carry firearms. They will be useful against wild animals, but will be pretty harmless against bandits.’*