Maddening Travel
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Conditions
Matua (3 Months In Dock!) Cannot Cope With Traffic
THE Union Steamship Company’s “Matua” which was withdrawn for annual survey in August, and was expected to go back on the Auckland- Suva-Apia-Tonga run at the end of Sep tember, will not now be back in service until November 11—probably a little later.
On this first run after overhaul she is scheduled to call at Pago-Pago, American Samoa, as well as her usual ports. The Sydney office of the company, in early November, could not state why this de viation would be made; or whether a call at the American territory would be a regular feature in future. Nor could they give any reason for the length of time that “Matua” has spent, this year, in dock in Auckland on routine overhaul which in past years has taken about one month. They suggest that it is probably due to shortage of labour in the Auck land docks.
Meanwhile, the Pacific territories which depend upon “Matua” as their chief means of communication with New Zea land have been seriously inconvenienced.
In Western Samoa, alone, there is a “back log” of 100 passengers, for whom only 24 berths have been allotted in November.
“Matua,” from Apia, is now fully booked until June, 1949, and the Union Company will accept no further bookings. The NZAC fortnightly plane is also fully booked from Samoa for months ah'ad and a number of visitors to the Territory are said to be stranded there.
It was hoped that when the Canadian- Australasian liner “Aorangi” went back on the Pacific service it would relieve the pressure that has been put on the “Matua’ for the past eight years. However, “Aorangi” allots few berths for Sydney- Suva and Auckland-Suva passengers and “Matua” apparently is expected to struggle on with the burden that, before the war, was shared by four or five other ships.
If the conditions in the Auckland docks are such that ‘-‘Matua” must spend three months out of twelve in idleness, it will mean more headaches for the shipping company and further exasperation for the already frustrated Islands traveller.
Misses Cates and Bechervaise, and Mr. and Mrs. Hatter, left Brisbane recently by the “Malaita” for Anglican mission stations in New Guinea.
For Dutch Ng
These three 150-ton Dutch tugs, which took part in the invasion of Europe, left Brisbane recently on the last leg of an adventurous 22, 000-mile voyage from Holland to Borneo. Each tug, which had a crew of 12, towed two barges from Brisbane to Sorong (Dutch New Guinea).