ON Saturday, April 7, 1962, an 18-year-old student embarked on a walking expedition that sparked interested followers from readers of this newspaper.
Betty Cavu of the Nasinu Training College planned to leave Suva on that Saturday morning for Lautoka via the Adi Cakobau School in Sawani and the Kings Rd.
She told a Fiji Times reporter that she hoped to walk 12 miles a day.
“I will carry two day’s provisions and if and when I run short I will depend on the villages along the Kings Rd,” she said.
Betty decided not to take anyone with her because others would be a nuisance, described The Fiji Times article.
“I’d rather be independent,” she said.
Betty added she would not accept any lifts because she had made up her mind to walk the whole distance.
Betty was a former student of Adi Cakobau School before leaving that same year.
She hailed from Ono-i-Lau, in the southern Lau Group.
She planned to start the walk from the junction of the Kings Rd and Princes Rd at 6.30am. “I will wear shorts and a jumper.
I’ll take a pair of sandals in case I need them but I walk better with bare feet,” she said.
So what gave her the idea to walk?
“I am interested in collecting newspapers and magazines and I have read of boys and girls overseas doing long walks during their holidays,” she told The Fiji Times.
“Another thing that inspired me was a series of colour slides which a lecturer at college, Mr Winnicott, showed us. They were taken when he and his father walked from Christchurch to Milford Sound in New Zealand”.
Almost a week later on Friday, April 13, The Fiji Times reported Betty was resting at Rakiraki while on her Suva-Lautoka walk via the Kings Rd.
In a telephone conversation with The Fiji Times, Betty said she hoped to continue her walk and expected to be at Lautoka on Monday or Tuesday the following week.
She walked 17 miles barefoot on the first day.
“This made me suffer from blisters so I decided to wear the sandals I carried in my pack,” she said.
She arrived at Rakiraki on Wednesday night and the following day, she had to receive treatment to her feet at the Rakiraki hospital.
Betty said she enjoyed the walk so far and people had been kind.
Her school friends that lived near the Kings Rd were helpful during her walking expedition.
