Our convoy left at 5-30 a.m. In fact it was the fastest passage I have made through the Canal. Of course we were lucky. Some may take two days, as certain convoys have to anchor in the Bitter Lakes. There were thirty homeward-bound ships there when we passed through. Our troops control the two ferries, and you see lots of our troops and camps around Ismalia. On the whole it was quiet when we passed". The ship is now on charter for six months to a New Zealand firm. After discharging part cargo at Sydney, she left there on 15th January to complete discharge at Newcastle, N.S.W., which is less than one day's steaming away. Completion of discharging and loading part cargo there took till 26th February, and then she went back to Sydney to complete loading. This took a further 18 days, and she finally left on 15th March for Lyttleton, where she arrived on 22nd March.
"MY HOLIDAY WORK" The chance remark at lunch towards the end of the Easter Term that the author intended to cycle from York to Cambridge in one day and thence on the succeeding day to Hastings, brought forth the inevitable rhetoric : "Do you really think you will get there?" "What, on that old bike?" Being rhetorical, these questions did not require an answer, but some qualification was necessary to the presumed answer, "Yes". The first proviso concerned the strength and direction of the wind, the second the absence of mechanical trouble. Now, the wind prior to the day of departure had been steadily from the north, as the athletes and spectators on Sports Day well knew, and by good fortune this direction with a quantity of West in it persisted, and so it happened that the perpetrator of this ride, or the victim, or what you will (at any rate, the author), set out at 6 a.m. on a cold and frosty morning and set his front wheel on the road to Selby. The wind struck across and, while seeming to oppose, was in fact not unhelpful. 14f miles to Selby in exactly one hour, 19-f to Doncaster and 711 to just outside Bawtry by 8-23 a.m., where a roadside café produced a most welcome plate of bacon and eggs and three cups of really hot tea. After leaving the main road at Bawtry, in order to keep to the flatter country, Gainsborough (12-f miles) and Lincoln (19 miles) were the next stages, and Lincoln was reached at 12-8 p.m. Up to this point, and after deducting time spent in resting and eating, the riding time was 5 hours 36 minutes for a total of 72 miles, or an average speed of just under 13 m.p.h. After Lincoln the road ascended a long and .tedious hill and went on its dreary way to Sleaford and Bourn in long ups and downs, there being one such wave in every mile. The 35 miles to Bourn took 37
