Page:Mannering - With axe and rope in the New Zealand Alps.djvu/55

Rh after which we returned to extricate the buggy, which had come to a standstill on its side, and was fast being silted up with moving shingle. It required all our strength to free it, and in doing so one of the wheels 'buckled.'

I have no doubt that we presented an amusing and half-drowned appearance as we stood on the bank and called the roll. All that was missing was my mackintosh, a mat, and whip.

Then we jumped on our buckled wheel till it sprang back into its normal shape, and splicing up the harness, wended our way back across the minor streams to the track at Birch Hill, wetter, sadder, and wiser men.

We reached Pukaki Ferry an hour after dark and Fairlie Creek the next evening, where we found the township in a state of jollification over the annual race-meeting. Most of the New Zealand country townships boast of their annual race-meeting, the racing lasting one day, and the whisky part of the proceedings generally running into three.

Then we took the train for Christchurch.