EXPEDITION PLANNED.
UP AMAZON RIVER. NEW ZEALAND WOMAN IN CHARGE. THE HERMITAGE, July 30. An expedition covering the full length of the Amazon River is being planned for early next year by Mrs H. E. Vail, of Perth, Western Australia, who is now at The Hermitage, Mount Cook. The expedition, which will include a certain amount of serious exploration work, will he under the sole control of this intrepid feminine “globe-trotter,” who, in addition to having been one of the 39 privileged passengers on the maiden voyage of the ill-fated airship, the Hindcnburg. covered last year 48,000 miles in eight months—ls,93o miles by ’plane, 6600 by the Zeppelin Hindenburg, 23,125 by boat, 600 by train, and the rest by motor-car. The party for the Amazon expedition will comprise about eight white persons, including two geologists. Mrs Vail plans to cover the lower portion of the river by steamer, which will carry the
canoes and other equipment necessary for travelling; in what is for the most part virgin country. Mrs Vail has X'ead a good deal concerning explorations up the Amazon, and realises the difficulty entailed in travelling through such country. She has a grounding in the languages of the various peoples and tribes whom the expedition is likely to encounter; but if this is inadequate Mrs Vail is confident that courtesy and a smile are understood all over the world. That has been her experience in her remarkable travels in the past.
Mrs Vail is a New Zealander by birtli ; Dunedin being her home town. She is an aviatrix of note and is her own pilot when she travels by air, and on terra firma drives a large motor-car which accompanies her from continent to continent.
Bright, alert and vital, Mrs Vail has found New Zealanders very kind people. She declares that many visitors to New Zealand do not appreciate it, as they are too prone to sit in hotel lounges and then declare that they have seen the country. To do so one must go into the interior and the way-backs, said Mrs Vail, who had just returned to The Hermitage after witnessing the American and New Zealand skiers race at the Ball Hur.
Mrs Vail’s husband is a mining engineer in Western Australia, and she says he is very good-natured about her travelling so much. Mrs Vail’s first trip was round China and Japan-—two countries she still loves. She hopes to go all through New Zealand, driving her own car and taking motion pictures for exhibition overseas.
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Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 208, 3 August 1937, Page 12
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419EXPEDITION PLANNED. Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 208, 3 August 1937, Page 12
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