TERRIFYING MISTAKE

Taranaki Daily News, 15 March 1935, Page 4

TERRIFYING MISTAKE

PARITUTU NIGHT CLIMB ASCENT BY PERILOUS SEA WALL. TWO MEN LOSE THEIR WAY. NARROW ESCAPE FROM DEATH. Ignorant that they ran grave danger of losing their lives for the sake of an hour’s entertainment, two men, stewards on the Port Auckland, at present berthed at Moturoa wharf, New Plymouth, climbed the perilous sea wall of Paritutu Rock las evening as dusk was falling, and were trapped by the treacherous rubble of the cliffside. Attempting a descent by the same route, the climbers came within an ace of being dashed 300 feet on to the jagged rocks below, and were driven back to the summit after probably the most terrifying half-hour of their lives. Finally, however, they managed to find the wire rope that led them prosaically back to safety. The adventurers were Messrs. T. Sellwood and F. Meadows. The news of their plight was conveyed by two young children who told some men working at the wharves that they had heard voices shouting for help from the top of Paritutu. In spite of sceptical advice offered by those who maintained that with an easterly wind blowing- shouts from the upper part of the rock would not be audible at the port, the police and the port nightwatchman were hastily summoned. By that time, hdwaver, 20 minutes had elapsed, and when an officer with a torch set out to investigate, the climbers were already out of danger. Messrs. Sellwood and Meadows left the ship about 7.15 o’clock, having no knowledge of the dangerous nature of the feat they-were attempting. Mr. Sellwood had done a certain amount of climbing in Scotland and both expected to find a hard rock surface. They were wearing light leather shoes and had neither rope rior torch.

Taking bearings frdni the scaffolding Of the old quarry trolley, the two men missed the track pegged out by the heavy wire rope, and worked round to the sea side of the rock, somehow scrampliiig without mishap up the sheer cliff face to the top. Already they realised the treacherous type of the rock with which they had to deal. Cautiously, then, they began a descent by thie way they had come. By now it was almost dark and they could barely see in front of them. Climbing down what appeared to be a steep grass bank they were suddenly brought up short as the slope abruptly ended in sheer cliff. One threw a boulder over the brink and felt an uncanny thrill of terror as he waited for some seconds before he heard the crash of its tell on rocks ter below. The two, now realising the madfless of the task they were attempting, and un-. able to pick up bearings from the scaffolding, decided to climb back to the top of the rock and call for help. Warily searching for a less hair-raising path of descent, and shouting at intervals to attract attention, they at last discovered the track they had missed and slid thankfully down to the broad base of Paritutu.

It was two rather shaken young men who related the experience to a Daily News reporter last night. “We feel as if we have been bom again,” said Sellwood. “We expected hard rock face, but that surface, had us beaten. If you gripped a jutting boulder it lifted out in your hands, and I will never forget that moment on the top when I stopped on a fairly safe -place to use my lighter. All I could see of Meadows was his white shirt and a shower of. boulders all round him?’- ■ ’ .