A GRILLED STEAK.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 940, 9 December 1933, Page 17 (Supplement)

A GRILLED STEAK.

Lincoln Ellsworth Tastes Best Yet. EXPLORER TRAMPS THE HILLS. (By “HOBNAILS”.) WHITEN Mr Lincoln Ellsworth takes his last look for some months at the New Zealand coastline from his gallant little ship, Wyatt Earp, with her bow pointed toward the Antarctic, not the least of the memories he carries away with him will concern, strangely enough, a steak, a grilled steak. It was a Banks Peninsula steak and he was introduced to it at the Hilltop Hotel at one morning when a chill was in the air, and the prospect of a thirty-mile walk ahead made it the only possible thing to start the day with. “ The best I ever tasted,” was his immediate verdict, and he meant it. When' the threat was made to this famous explorer that a few memoirs of his tramping excursions might eventuate, he agreed, on one condition only. The condition was that mention should be made of that self-same steak. It was a week afterwards that the conversation cropped up, but he still had that steak in mind. On the Hills. It is not widely known that Mr Ellsworth. during his stay in Christchurch, covered nearly every walk the Hills can provide and he came to appreciate them as few people in Christchurch can. Every week-end for certain, and some odd days during the week he went in quest of exercise and fresh air. By the end of two months he was more conversant with the highways and byways of the Hills than the regular trampers themselves His favourite walks were to the Hilltop and Akaroa. Over Mount Herbert to the Hilltop was one route which ! frequently filled in an afternoon. It was on one of these walks that he was the witness of a singular event. It concerned a sheep and a lamb. The sheep was blinded through the growth of wool about its eyes and clinging bidi-bidis, and. believe it or not, was being led round by the lamb. Mr Ellsworth watched the procession for three hundred yards before he could bring himself to believe it, but ample proof was given for the ewe fell over a fallen tree and had to be assisted. No sooner was it placed on its feet than the lainb went to its mother’s head and again the procession started. The mother kept her head just above, sometimes touching, the lamb’s back and was led off down a steepish bank and into the woods. A Moose and Her Calf. Mr Ellsworth recalled that once before, when stalking moose in Canada, he had observed the same attachment between a moose and her calf. The moose was shot before the explanation of the pair’s strange behaviour was revealed. lie added, however, that it was stranger still to find a similar case among what could be called domesticated animals. On one occasion he was caught in

the rain and compelled to call in at the Parkinson home at Kaituna. The beautiful native bush gained his instant comment and he decided that this spot ranked amongst the prettiest it had ever been his pleasure to visit. He was enthusiastic, too, about the work of Mr 11. G. Ell, whom he met at the Sign of the Takahe. Mr Ellsworth proved to be a gay and energetic companion on many long tramps round the hills, with a repertoire of stories that would shame anyone less travelled. “ Say,” he asked on one occasion when a companion had established a name for punctuality, “ have you never been late for anything at all?” “Not that I know of,” was the reply. “ Well, he complained, “ you don’t give a man five minutes extra.” And that was said when he arrived fifteen minutes late for the appointment ! No Worrying Done. While he has the highest regard for New Zealanders there is one point about them that he cannot fathom—their unworried acceptance of things as they are. “ I’ve never seen a New Zealander with his * goat out,’ ” he said one day. “ They don’t seem to worry about things. In America everyone gets his goat out often,” he added in his firm voice with more than a suspicion of America in it, but attractive all the same and not penetratingly nasal as the films would have us imagine typical of all his countrymen. Another thing he cannot understand is why information about their country has to be forced out of New Zealanders. In the High Commissioner’s office in London, he said, it was all he could do to extract the most meagre details. While the representatives of other countries were bubbling over with statistics and information. literally j rushing travellers off their feet. New Zealand alone maintained a splendid isolation. While that might be very dignified, or thought to be. it would not attract the visitors, and there was more to interest the tourist in New Zealand than any other place he knew He intended to do a little quiet canvassing himself on his return from the frozen South. Liking for Christchurch. He likes Christchurch; perhaps he was fortunate with the weather, but he cannot understand why people can live in Dunedin, only on account of the rain, but 'there again perhaps he was unfortunate with the weather. Dunedin will probably object to his description, but that is how he gave it. Neither Wellington nor Auckland would suit him, but Auckland would be all right in small doses, to use his words. But if New Zealand has done nothing more for him it has established a reputation for steaks that any chef unfortunate enough to be engaged, by him will spend a lifetime attempting to equal.