TWELVE MONTHS' TOUR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22444, 13 June 1936, Page 23

TWELVE MONTHS' TOUR

HORSE-DRAWN CARAVAN . Mrs. Delme Radcliffe, an English woman, who has spent much of her life in India, and her daughter, Miss Elizabeth Radcliffe, are adopting an unusual method of seeing part of Australia, states a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald. They have rebuilt two dilapidated horse-drawn vehicles into comfortable caravans, and on June 8 they set out on a leisurely tour of New South Wales and Southern Queensland, working to no set schedule, but wandering at random over byways and avoiding main roads as much as possible. Their only plan for the present, Mrs. Radcliffe said, was to "follow the sunshine " northward along the coast until they reached Rockhampton, after which they would return by the inland route and perhaps continue on to Melbourne. The main caravan has been built on to an old llat-top two-horse lorry, and considerable ingenuity has been 'shown by Miss Radcliffe in designing a body that will give the greatest possible amount of room. At first the interior looks like a drawing room, but the lounges can also bo used as bunks. A fixed table, built-in cooking galley, a crockery cupboard, which will.be proof against jolting, shelves and capacious drawers, are all snugly accommodated under bunks and in odd corners. The second vehicle is a four-wheeler panel van which previously did duty as a laundrymnn's delivery. It took very little alteration to equip it asan extra sleeping compartment. It will also be used to carry extra stores on long stretches. Mrs. Radcliffe said that she had develojjed a taste for open-air life in the hills of India, and she was surprised that the project was considered so unusual by Australian people. A motor caravan, she said, had to follow the highways, and this was something she wished to avoid. Coming from a farming family in England, she was very interested in every branch of agriculture, and wished to see every aspect of Australian farm life.