AUSTRALIA 



have developed and, I might add, their surfboating is the most 

 rugged sport that I have ever had the pleasure of participating 

 in— as a passenger. 



Australia boasts wonderfully smart-looking women, hand- 

 some men and appealing youngsters, excellent beer and 

 shrimps and could be compared with Texas for hospitality. 

 Ice hockey is played in Sydney and Melbourne, and softball 

 has taken hold in a big way. 



Mrs. Farrington and I had expected to go to Australia on 

 January 3, 1941, but with Great Britain at war we thought it 

 would be unfair to draw on the Dominion's limited supply 

 of gasoline just to go fishing, so we canceled our trip. It was 

 a long wait to 1 949 when we finally made it, and the month 

 I spent there I'll never forget. 



The day I flew into Sydney, after a smooth thirty-two- 

 hour flight from San Francisco with six hours out for lunch at 

 Honolulu, I received fifty-four wires and letters and mes- 

 sages of welcome. At no time was I ever alone— riding in 

 automobiles with me or on the boats were representatives of 

 the government, the tourists' bureaus and the newspapers, as 

 well as Malcolm Hudson, who publishes the Australian yacht- 

 ing magazine and also the Australian Field & Stream. 



On a hot summer's night in Sydney I was asked to show 

 moving pictures— which I had brought— of angling off South 

 America and Nova Scotia. The show was on the sixth floor 

 of a building, and seven hundred enthusiasts walked upstairs 

 to see it. 



Fishing along the AustraHan coast is enjoyed mostly in the 

 Tasman Sea (which is part of the South Pacific Ocean), and 

 the marlin are caught all the way from Port Maitland down 



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