CIRCUIT COMPLETED

Taranaki Daily News, 22 July 1935, Page 4

CIRCUIT COMPLETED

SKATING ROUND EGMONT SEVENTY MILES IN TWO DAYS. PUBLIC SHOWS GREAT INTEREST. YOUTH’S SUCCESSFUL JOURNEY. Coasting down Devon Street, New Plymouth, with the aid of his ingenious pine-branch brake, Stahley Mockford, the young Tuakau farmer who began a 100-mile circuit of Mt. Egmont on skates on Wednesday, completed his trip in good order and condition at 5 o clock on Saturday afternoon. He covered the 70 miles from Stratford td New Plymouth, via Opunake, between lunch time on Friday and Saturday afternoon. He had enjoyed the adventure thoroughly, said Mr. Mockford when interviewed by a Daily News representative later. He found the road surface excellent for skating, especially the older tar-sealed sections, and although he had not seen very much of Mt. Egmont, he thought the scenery well worth the journey. ' Apart from trouble on the first day, when the rims of two wheels of one skate wore through, his means of travel gave him no worry. Mr. Mockford proudly exhibited, a stout green branch of pinus insignis, which had formed a most efficient brake.' Tired of taking off one skate to give himself some control going down hills, hO explained, he had obtained the branch after leaving Stratford and from then on sat down on his skates, putting pressure on the branch between his legs on. steep, descents. When a climb was toO steep and the roadside too rough he had th take off a skate, find he walked up the worst hills, but apart from that he had made a steady 12 miles an hour on the open toad. The traveller mentioned with an air of surprise the interest that had been taken by the people along the route in a journey that was for hirti purely a part of a holiday. News of his coming seemed to precede him, he said, presumably by telephone, and he found the population of settlements en route waiting for him. At Kaponga a man accompanied him on skates for some distance, and at many villages children on cycles rode with him along the highway. When he stopped at an Oaonui house on Friday night to ask if he could sleep in a shed the farmer insisted on giving him a bed, and other people gave him meals.. He was nOt in the least stiff after Skating 100 miles, declared Mf. Modkford. He had not set out with the intention of breaking ,records/ He stopped when he felt like it. He suggested that Others might find his idea for holidaymaking as enjoyable on Taranaki’s tarsealed roads aS -he had. Mr. Mockford stayed yesterday ; with friends at Omata and left for Auckland at 3 a.m. to-day—by car.