Up And Down With The Storcks

and Mrs. Vince Storck, of Suva, own two boats—“Oo-100-loo” and ‘ 00-la-la”—in which they take parties of tourists up the Rewa River or out cruising around Suva Harbour’s reefs and islands By some extraordinary gift, they seem to be able to bring a fresh approach to the job with each batch of tourists, although no doubt each day’s little lot asks the same number of fool questions , The Storcks work very hard and put everything they’ve got into their enterprise and provide, amongst other things on the cruise of the glass-bottomed “00-100-loo” fantastic morning tea. This includes a banana cake whose fame has travelled all over the Pacific (The recipe is given away at the end of the cruise—but sorry, I’ve lost mine) Mr. Storck and I had met before—7oo feet underground as he put it. In 1945, when I first visited Vatukoula, I was told by the then manager of Emperor and Loloma mines that the company didn’t approve of women going underground.

That suited me, but for some reason I’ve never been able to fathom, his offsider who was showing me around was determined otherwise. He lured me into a cage and without more ado we fell straight down 700 feet in about as many seconds, unheralded and unsung into a group of Fijian miners and European overseers The whole thing scared the living daylights out of me and my recollection of subsequent proceedings is dim, but if Mr. Storck re members it after all these years, it must have made some sort of impression on the assembled company. — “Sydneysider”.