Archives-December 1944

Wasted petrol in Tahiti

THERE probably is no place on earth where petrol is so persistently and joyously wasted as in Tahiti particularly by truck drivers.

One of the favourite procedures is to clean (or attempt to clean) foul sparkplugs by racing the motors.

When a motor begins to stutter in a manner that informs any experienced driver that a foul spark plug is the cause, our learned Tahiti chauffeurs will try everything but the obvious method of unscrewing and cleaning the

plug.

Often the lorry will stand on one spot for half an hour while the chauffeur presses down the accelerator pedal, at intervals of five seconds, until the whole neighbourhood is filled with noise, petrol fumes, and profanity - as though a Panzer division were operating there.

The only variation, in the case of a choked carburettor, is that - after the usual period of thunder and profanity the lorry is bunted ahead a hundred yards, and the process repeated.

Another procedure is carried out whenever a lorry is sent to deliver a box of groceries to the Mission (distance half a kilometre). The route home is invariably via Fautaua Avenue, and Prince Hinoi Road (a distance of two and a half kilometres) in order that the chauffeur and his assistants may be refreshed after their arduous labours.

The enigma of the errands of the empty lorries that buzz throuigh the highways and byways of Papeette at all hours of the day and far into tine night, constitutes a mystery as profoumd and dismal as Easter Island.

Airmail to Cook Islands

The arrival of the first plane to land on Rarotonga (chief island of the Cook Group) was made the occasion, in November, of a public celebration.

It was a civilian plane, with a NZ Air Force crew, and it inaugurated what is hoped will become a regular weekly airmail service - Auckland - Nukualofa (Tonga) - Aitutaki (Cook Is) - Rarotonga.

Among civilian officials who made this initial survey flight was Mr C McKay, secretary of the NZ Islands Territories Department. ■