WELCOME SUPPLIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26589, 11 October 1947, Page 6

WELCOME SUPPLIES

WEST' COAST CAMP

WHITEBAITERS’ PLIGHT

RELIEF SENT BY AIR

An aircraft has seldom had such a heart-felt welcome as that which awaited an Otago Aero Club Tiger Moth when it landed at Big Bay, on the West Coast, yesterday, with supplies for the three young Christchurch men at the whitebait camp there. Since the mishap to the Auster aircraft in the Lammerlaw Range last week, they had been out of contact with the outside world. In fact, as they are without a radio and are 58 miles of some of the roughest country in New Zealand away from the nearest telephone, they were not even aware that the aircraft which maintained contact with them had met with an accident. They had imagined that it had been held up with bad weather, but as it was fine on the coast yesterday, they were prepared to start worrying if something had not arrived, as they were down to bedrock in their supplies. “As soon as I had touched down on the beach, the three of them came running along the sand waving cigarette papers over their heads like flags of truce,” said Mr R. G. Bush, the Otago Aero Club instructor, who flew in the load of supplies yesterday. “ They were frantic, to know whether I had anything to go with the papers, as they had been out of cigarettes for a week and had been smoking coffee. They said it didn't taste too good.” Fortunately, tobacco had been included in the supplies flown in to the camp by Mr Bush. The men were heartily sick of the look of whitebait, Mr Bush told the Daily Times. Their traps had been full for days from the two streams running into Big Bay, but there had been no way of getting the fish out. With their own supplies running low, they had been eating a certain amount of it, but they had stopped laying their nets in the meantime. Unfortunate Mistake The men had been without meat for a week and they had finally managed to shoot a deer. After preparing the venison, they had discovered that they had no fat left. One of the men had remembered seeing some fat in an old abandoned shack some distance away, so he had tramped over and recovered it. It was hard and grimy, but was better than nothing. They had been carefully hoarding a lone egg, so they decided to make whitebait fritters. To' their horror, the mixture started to bubble in the pan, and a belated realisation came to them that the lump of fat was, in fact, a lump of soap. The men were originally transported in to their camp by air, the beach at Big Bay offering an excellent oneway landing strip at low tide. They have been living in an old log cabin, and Mr Bush stated that they had all grown magnificent beards. The bay is some distance north of Milford Sound, and is backed by mountainous and densely timbered country which would take weeks to cross. On most maps, the country is still marked “ unexplored,” and there are several huge glaciers in the area which are not even named. Auster Still Unrecovered.

The 'Otago aircraft met with reasonably good weather on the flight, although there was a certain amount of low cloud. The airline distance from the Taieri is approximately 200 miles. The flight had been scheduled for some days ago, but unfavourable weather had prevented any attempt being made to get across to the coast with supplies. Meanwhile, continued foggy conditions in the Lammerlaws, with the ground across the ridges from the nearest road to the point r at which the Auster is located extremely greasy, prevented any attempt to take in a heavy truck yesterday. It is hoped that conditions will be suitable for an attempt to bring the dismantled aircraft out to-day.