ON CHINA CLIPPER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20639, 30 January 1937, Page 18

ON CHINA CLIPPER

AUSTRALIAN GIRL’S EXPERIENCES Miss Annie Hemes, a Melbourne girl, claims to be the first Australian to travel on the China Clipper PanPacific service from San Francisco, states the “Sydney Morning Herald.” She arrived in Sydney recently, after flying 12,000 miles in a successful attempt to reach Australia in time for a fashion show which the shipping strike in America threatened to make her miss. A hat designer, Miss Hemes went to San Francisco for a Melbourne hat firm, and but for her undertaking of the long air journey, the sketches which she had drawn of American hats Would not have been able to be made up in time for her firm’s fashion show. Having had the long Pacific flight, Miss Hemes has decided that she will always travel by aeroplane when she can. The first sign of any '-’-'d of illness during the whole flight was when the effect of her vaccination at Darwin began to show. Until then she had enjoyed the flight, was not at all afraid and slept peacefully through the one night she had in the air, despite the fact that the plane passed through a heavy snowstorm and flying was rough.

“We left San Francisco at 3.15 cn Monday, December 14, and arrived ;.t Honolulu at 6.30 the following morn-

ing, having made a record for that trip by covering 2400 miles in 174 hours,” said Mi s Hemes. "Duri g the night we passed through a snowstorm, and some ice formed on the wings of the plane. After spending the day in Honolulu we went on to Wakke Island, which is only two miles and a half square and uninhabited except for the cable station and the PanAmerican Hotel. Miss Hemes described the albatross on the island, which, she said, were nesting and were so tame that she could walk among them without disturbing them. The next stops were Midway Island and the United States naval depot, Guam Island. It had taken two days’ travelling from about 6.30 until 3 or 4 In the afternoon to make these two journeys, and the trip to Manila from Guam Island took from 6 a.m. until 5 p in. Miss Hernes travelled by a Dutch boat from Manila to Sourabaya, where she joined the England-Australian Qantas plane. All the luggage which Miss Hernes brought with her were one large and one small case and hatboxes with some of the latest American hats. Even so, site said she had excess baggage.