N.Z. MEN ARE BACK FROM HUNTING TRIP

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19236, 25 November 1930, Page 1

N.Z. MEN ARE BACK FROM HUNTING TRIP

TELL OF EXPERIENCES WITH AFRICAN BIG GAME (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) SYDNEY, November (24. Hunting experiences in Africa were related by two young New Zealanders, Mr Harold Thomas, of Auckland, and Mr John Holmes, of Frankton, who arrived by the liner Themistocles. Their “bag” consisted by twenty different kinds of animals. I\fr Thomas nearly lost his life during an encounter with a wounded buffalo. The buffalo gored hjm in the thigh, and his companions carried him twenty miles to a mission station, where he was tinder treatment for many weeks. The scene of their hunting exploits was between Northern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo. The third member of the party, Mr Alex. M’Kinnon, of Auckland, left the ship at Melbourne. The three New Zealand sportsmen left by the Makura about a year ago. All three are deerstalkers of many years’ experience. Mr Holmes has had experience in big game hunting before, and in 1925, accompanied by the late Mr W. R. Twigg, of Auckland, he undertook on expedition into the northwestern part of Rhodesia, where Mr Twigg met his death in an encounter with a lion. The party intended to travel by a Blue Funnel liner to Durban, and thence by rail to a convenient point in Northern Rhodesia. When the dry season began, about the end of July, they expected to set off on a circuitous route through the western game country, possibly including some of the Belgian Congo, and returning to the base before making a similar expedition to the East. On his former trip Mr Holmes shot elephant, hippopotamus, buffalo and a great variety of buck and antelope. Ilis collection of heads is regarded as easily the finest in New Zealand, and his purpose in revisiting Africa was chiefly to obtain heads of species which are not amoiVg his collection.

Prince George has left London for Oslo, via Flushing, Hamburg and Sassnitz, to attend the celebrations in connection with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the accession of King Haakon.