WITH TENT AND MOTOR

Taranaki Daily News, 21 December 1929, Page 5 (Supplement)

WITH TENT AND MOTOR

ROUND ABOUT THE ISLAND UNUSUAL NORTHERN TRIP. •Oh I". GREAT VARIETY OF INTEREST. . (By “Trip.”—Special to News.) (All Rights Reserved.) T; ? The majority of those who have . written for information about motorpamping are people with short: holidays ' who wifih to go as far as possible in the . time at their disposal. They have ten ' days or a fortnight’s break, and by taking the car they’ want to cover a great deal of ground,.and cram into,their all too brief spell from work as many and as varied experiences as they possibly ’ can. . Most of these'articles therefore have shown how easy it is to get quickly from place to place,'and how to concentrate on seeing the most interesting things 0n1y,,. A letter just received, however, shows that there are others •with more time, .who' want to drift along- going by unusual routes, but.jvhb find difficulty in getting just the. information they need to feel secure before starting off.; This writer wants to travel, as far as is possible, right up the East Coast to Auckland, and then come down the West" Coast, and he wants to see everything to be seen along these roads, while omitting ’ Rotorua -and Taupo, where he has previously been. Time / does not matter greatly, as he can spend up to six weeks away. It was while thinking over his letter that it struck me that this coastal trip ; offers a great deal of variety to tho*3 who have already visited many of our ' principal tourist resorts, and who are anxious to. spend a few weeks in the ' great outdoors with tent and car. By ‘ coastal "trip, of course, I mean the routes that run nearest the coast, for it is riot possible to skirt .the coast either, way. It has always been my • contention that there are no uninteresting roads in New Zealand, mainly - because they are so varied. Travelling by ' this route which skirts right round the ‘ island you pass through every conceivable type of farming country, through beautiful bush, over rugged mountains, and in addition you . see - some of the most beautiful of our coastal scenery. MUCH LONGER ROUTE. With a round trip such as this, it does not matter where the starting point may be, so for argument’s eake we will take it as from Wellington. The route traversed will, of course, be very much longer than the previously-de-scribed journeys through Taupo and Rotorua, but' as time is not a factor, that is immaterial. A journey such as this is really for those who’ have already seen most of the special tourist attractions of the North Island; anyone who was making a first tour would want to spend more time at places such as Wairakei and Rotorua, arid would not' be content with the milder excitements of the present route. ■ * 5 • Starting from Wellington then, the run could be made up through the Wai- . rarapa, and although we have described this as a coastal journey, in reality you don’t see the sea again until just before you arrive at Napier. However, it is as near the East Coast as you can get by a main highway. There is plenty of good camping to be had in. the Wairarapa district, and by getting off the main road you can get in some mountaineering too. Motor camps exist at . practically every Wairarapa town from Featherston onwards, and the road right through to Woodville is in splendid order, being to a great extent bitumenised. From Woodville to Napier the road is good also, and camping can be had hero at numerous places such as Waipawa, W T aipukurau and Hastings, where there is a specially good place. FROM NAPIER TO TAURANGA. The second stage of the journey is from Napier to Gisborne, and on this stage the ~oad does follow the coast at a number of points, and, especially after leaving Napier, you get some very fine views of sea coast. The road between Napier and Wairoa is steep in places but the road surface is in excellent condition, and it is an all-weather road. Here, of course ; there are no small towns en route as with the earlier fltage? of the journey, and you must perforce camp by the wayside. There is no hardship in that, however, for there are plenty of suitable spots, and at Wairoa itself there is a good camping ground close to the river. It is from Wairoa that the run in to Lake Waikaremoana can be made, of which more later. Between Wairoa and Gisborne there are also one or two steep hills that require careful driving, and it is on this section, soon after leaving Wairoa, that you come to the Morere hot springs, set in delightful surroundings amid native bush. There is a good camping place here close to the river. Some day it will be possible to go ( northwards from Gisborne along the East Coast, and follow right round the coast to Opotiki. At present the road ends do not join, so that anyone wanting to go Up the East Coast from Gisborne must be prepared to double back on hia tracks. The main road from Gisborne to Opotiki runs up through Matawai and the Motu gorge, a fairly narrow but well surfaced road. There has been a very bad stretch on this road near Otoko up till this season, but winter metalling has relegated that to the background and you can now get through in all weathers, although there are still one or two creeks that give trouble after very heavy rain. From Opotiki you run out through Whakatane to Tauranga, one of the most beautiful little places in New Zealand, and fast becoming a favourite holiday resort for Aucklanders. Roads in this vicinity are bad, but to Tauranga at least they arc metalled, which is more than can be said for some stretches beyond. THROUGH'WAIHI TO POKENO. Now, if the weather were very bad at this stage of the journey it would be advisable to make back to Rotorua by the

metalled road, and thence run up to Hamilton; if the fine weather holds good, carry on beyond Tauranga to Waihi and then cut in to Pderoa, and across to Pokeno, or else go up through Thames, and back to PokcnO, which is a better road. These are rough roads with unmctalled stretches, especially in the vicinity of the Kaimai. The run , from Pokeno to Auckland is made over a splendid highway, and will present no difficulties. There are plenty of places for camping at Auckland, and -a specially Well-equipped motor camp is available to members of automobile associations. \ MAKING TOWARDS HOME. ■ Most of th® country over which you travel on the homeward journey has al--1 ready been described in previous ’ You would make back through Hamilton 1 and Te'Kuiti to New Plymouth, and then run. down the coast to Hawera and ' Wanganui, finally returning to the starting point down the coast road over the Paekakariki hill. There are very good motor camps at places like Hawera, New Plymouth and Wanganui, and if you haven't been to Waitomo caves you .can see these by turning from Hangatiki, near Te Kuiti. They are just a. few miles from the main road. Beaches there are in plenty on this southwards journey, and one of the best is at Opunake. . Near the Mokau there are splendid places for motor camping, and New Plymouth, of course, is one of the prettiest of our provincial towns, ■■ with much to'interest visitors. You could spend a very happy two months on a journey like this, if you took some of the side routes that lead into the mountains or out to the coast. Few of us have the opportunity of long holidays such as that, but if we have, we may as well spend them well afield, if we are the proud possessors of cars—ancient or modern. You could, of course, cover this ground quite easily in three weeks, but it would be rushing it rather to attempt to do it in much less time. . You could cover the ground, but you couldn’t spend time in the. many delightful and interesting places you will run through on the journey.' CARS REPLACING PONIES. The road construction programme in Iceland is resulting in the rapid substitution of the motor car for the poriy as a means of transportation. During 1928 the number of motor cars in operation in Iceland was increased by nearly 100 per cent, the total number of cars at the ■ close of 1928 being 310 passenger cars 1 and 492 trucks. During the first half ] of 1929, it is estimated, roughly 325 1 automobiles, of which a very large proportion were trucks, were imported into j Iceland, and, as the unsold stock of I motor cars is small, it may be taken 1 for granted that approximately the f same number has been put into operation during the first six months of the 1 current year. ( - 1 ' ' ' » TO CONTROL THE ROADS. 1 ' < _ . 1 Ancient cities suffered from street 1 congestion and Caesar found it necessary to issue an order prohibiting the ] passage of waggons through the central 1 district of Rome for ten hours after sun- t rise. That was a more drastic regu- 1 lation than any modern city imposes, but as traffic congestion becomes in- > creasingly complex, the problem of 1 effective. control is getting serious at- s tention from all quarters. 1 Dr. Miller McClintock, director of the s Albert Russel Erskine Bureau for traffic ■research, offers some interesting com- r ments on this problem:—“The modern t traffic problem arose in the latter part 1 of the past century and is a by-product c of the phenomenal growth of metropoli- 8 tan districts. The failure of cities to s cope more satisfactorily with the street t situation is partially explained by the rapidity with which the traffic problem v has developed. While its growth began t with the motorisation of traffic, the t pressure of the new burden and its c ultimate development were not generally recognised until recent years. For s example practically all the traffic e bureaux of city police departments had their origin between 1910 and 1920. r “These traffic bureaux have in a few c cities succeeded in developing a certain v amount of effective traffic control tech- u nique. But the police have served and will continue to serve chiefly as agents t for the enforcement of orders made for s them. These orders and regulations t originated in ordinances passed by 0 councils of the municipalities, and in the i ] more general vehicle codes of the states. Too much guesswork about traffic pro- s blems, too many attempts to apply I quiek cures based on opinion rather t than detailed engineering study, are the principal reasons which can be assigned f for the failure of most cities to deal more effectively with traffic congestion, d The traffic problem is essentially an en- v gineering problem. It is a series of h conflicts between street cars, trucks, t pedestrians, motor cars and horse- t drawn vehicles. These conflicts in- s evitably produce a degree of friction 0 which cuts down the speed and safety of all traffic movements. * S:

“There is no single panacea for so complicated a situation. A series of reliefs must be applied. In dealing with the traffic of a metropolitan city it becomes necessary to make a minute investigation of the sources of friction, and to treat each element of the problem in an individual and specific manner. In the study of the traffic no less than in the study of any business problem it has become essential to get the facts. This condition calLs for the services of trained traffic engineers to direct surveys, to gather facts and to correlate the mass of data that must be developed by any thoroughgoing study on which real relief measures can be based.

“Constantly changing character of traffic calls for continuous study if relief measures are to be kept up to date. Motor vehicles registered in the United States on January 1 numbered 24,592,370 compared with 23,134,315 on January 1, 1923, a gain of 6.3 per cent. In 1927 the Increase was 5.1 per cent; in 1926, 10 per cent; in 1925, 14 per cent., and in 1923, 17 per cent. Thus while the percentage of increase each year is smaller, with the single exception of 1920, more 1,000,000 vehicles a year arc still being added.

CAR TO FIT DRIVER. BRITISH DEFENDER OF RECORD. I am able to reveal the first details of the remarkable British motor car that is now being built, in secret at Wolverhampton, says the motoring correspondent of t'he Daily Mail. It will be driven by Mr. Kaye Don > at Daytona, Florida, next February, in 1 defence of Britain’s title to the world’s 1 land speed record. The present record, 231 miles an hour, . is held by Sir Henry Segrave. The United States, it is reported, will make every effort to wrest it from us, and the new British car, a Sunbeam, is being built as a safeguard. It will be by far and away the most powerful car ever constructed. Its two engines are designed to develop no less t*ian 4009 h.p. Sir Henry Segrave’s Golden Arrow developed 1000 h.p., and the American car that challenged it 1500 h.p. The 4'ooo h.p. of the new car is crammed into a machine no larger than a small family car, and certainly much nearer the ground. Its height is that of the bottom waistcoat button of the average man (the height of the average Englishman is sft 7£in). Mr. Louis Coatalen, the designer who designed two of the previous cars which established speed records for Britain, told mo that he had to place himself in the position of a tailor in machinery. Ho has had to design the whole machine to the measurements of Mr. Kaye Don. “And I wish,” he said, “that he was a smaller man.” The whole measurements of the car have been based on the width of the driver. The 24 cylinders of the two engines have been cram 7 med together to fit in, as only by this means it is possible to cut down wind resistance. ' A speed of from 280 to 300 miles an hour is Mr. C'oatalen’s aim. A patent springing device ensures that if rhe steering wheel receives a sudden impact it gives under the blow —in other words, if it struck the body of the driver it would bounce off him. So close are the measurements of the car to Mr. Kaye .Don’s size that lie will not be able to get into the cockpit without the steering wheel being removed. The problem of steering at a speed approaching five miles a minute caused Mr. Coatalen considerable trouble. Experts believe that the eyes perform their normal functions at such a speed provided there is no vibration. Vibration plays dangerous tricks with the eyesight. Therefore Mr. Kaye Don himself will be “sprung.” He will sit on a form of springing which will damp out all shocks. The car itself will be shaped like an airplane. But whereas an airplane rises when its speed is increased, the car will tend to clamp itself more tightly to the ground.

GIANT FLYING BOAT. DORNIER DO X. Tho great German seaplane Dornier Do X made tho most amazing flight recently that has yet. been recorded in the history of the conquest of the air. She rose from tho surface of Lake Constance with 169 persons on board, flew at a height of 000 feet for 50 minutes, and alighted in port with the grace of a bird. Bad weather, mists, and rain made it necessary to defer the flight until a day when tho sun shone on the dancing waves of the lake and heralded the moment for which all had been eagerly waiting. Quickly the 159 passengers were brought by motor-boat from hotels on the shore of the lake to Altenrhein, where the Do X lay at anchor. Her immense size (writes a correspondent in the Daily Mail) made those who had not already seen one of the test flights feel that a miracle must take place before she could rise in the air. She is the largest aeroplane in the world. She is three times and a half larger than the Dornier Super-Whale seaplane, and stands far higher out of the water than one of tho passenger steamers plying on the lake. Her body is 137 ft long, 20ft broad, and 29ft high. The span of hei’ gigantic wings is 149 ft, and they are 31ft wide. She has twelve enormous motors of 525 h.p. each. And this was the huge and heavy contrivance in which 159 passengers and a crew of ten were to fly through tho air. As each passer.(J r arived he was weighed, and had to sign a statement that no claim would be brought against the Dornier Company if an accident occurred. Everybody signed this rather sinister statement cheerfully, having absolute confidence in Dr. Dornier and the crew. And, after all, the machine had already made a number of .flights with a weight equivalent to that of the 159 people who were to fly in her b<»ween earth and heaven. On board tho passengers found that there was plenty of room in the great saloon on the lower dqck|, aKhu)jgh they had to sit rather close together on the basket-work seats which had been installed for tho occasion. “It was rather like sitting in the stalls of a cinema,” said one of the passengers afterwards as he described tho rapidly changing Swiss, German, and Austrian landscape that he had seen from his place during tho flight. When tho passengers on the lower deck and tho crew on tho upper deck were all in their places the great 525 h.p. motors, which are placed high above the upper deck, began one after the other to revolve with a terrific roar and the seaplane slipped at a tremendous pace over tho water. “Before wo knew where we were,” said another passenger afterwards, “we were up in the air. In point of fact the Do X rose from tho surface of the lake in less than a minute. Higher and higher she ascended until she had attained a height of 600 feet, and then she slipped westwards at a speed of over 105 miles an hour. The passenger proceeded: “In half an hour wo were flying over the town of Constance, then over Meersburg, and next over Friedrichshafen, where the inhabitants cheered with immense enthusiasm. This we thought very sporting of them, for after all the Do X is a pretty dangerous rival for the Zeppelin.”

All the passengers emphasised the steadiness of the machine and the smoothness of the flight. “I had felt a little nervous before,” confessed one, “but as soon as we were in the air all my nervousness vanished and I felt perfectly secure.”

Dr. Dornier, who was on board, looked grave during the first part of the flight, but its success was so -wonderful that his features relaxed, and he had a laughing and almost boyish demeanour. He was overwhelmed with congratulations when the flying-boat descended, and the workmen of the Dornier works were as eager as airy to cheer him,