EXPLORATION FLIGHT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18065, 17 April 1933, Page 4

EXPLORATION FLIGHT

BACK COUNTEY LANDING DUCKS AND SANDFLIES Several hundred miles of back country in South Westland were traversed by Mr. J. C. Mercer, instructor to the Canterbury Aero Club, in the second aerial prospecting flight which he has completed in the course of a month. One of his landings was at a site where no other aeroplane had ever been— ls miles up the Arawhata River, close to tho foot of Mount Aspiring. In company with hi.s brother, Mr. C. B. M ercer, a mining-engineer, Mr. Mercer left the Wigram aerodrome last Monday afternoon and spent tho night at Hokitika, flying on the next day to Ok uru, tho tiny settlement furthest south along the coast, where mails and supplies have to be packed in over many miles of bush tracks, or landed from an occasional visiting vessel. Okuru had previously been Mr. Mercer’s furthest south landing ground, but on the photographs he took on his last trip he had seen places that looked promising, and this time he investigated one of them It was a flat, grassy field beside the Arawhata River, many miles away from any settlements or farms Mr. Mercer stated, on his return to Christchurch, that anyone who did not j|y to Ibis place can reach it Only by riding horses up the river. On shinglespits in the river are paradise ducks in hundreds. ‘‘We chased some of them in ilio Moth,” Mr. Mercer said, “but on the ground wo couldn't get near them.” Almost from the beaches on the coast south of Okuru the hills rise up, and onlv a few miles inland they reach 4000 5000 and 8000 ft. On their sides, through the bush, the aerial tourist sees streams and waterfalls, and. as the hills become mountains there are glaciers. On this trip Mr. Mercer saw the head of Andy’s glacier. At the new Arawhata landing ground, besides paradise ducks, the visitors found another, and less nleasin o ' form o f life Sandflies gathered in clouds “There is a mountain down there railed Sandflv Hill.” Mr. Mercer said. “There is a big gap in the bush these, and tlm Okuru neotile say the sandflies ate it out.” But the scenery, lie savs, more than compensates for the insects.

From the Arawhata ground Mr Mercer flow back over the 120 miles to the Franz Josef Glacier, where he called.