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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 5 (September 1, 1932)

Bush Fashions

Bush Fashions.

Other times, other clothes. The Imperial soldiers in their day in New Zealand did not take to the kilt like the later Armed Constabulary, but after 1868 practically all the military forces in the field left their trousers in barracks or other permanent camps, and took the bush trail wearing the waist-shawl, like the Highlanders' tartan array and the Maori rapaki. At a later day many of us, when bush-travelling, resorted to the kilt, in the form of a bit of blanket or a small shawl, and found it a capital fashion for rough work, and particularly river-crossing in such places as the King Country bush before it was roaded and bridged, and in the Urewera Country beyond the limits of the horse-tracks. But nowadays pleasure-trampers, as well as many bushmen and surveyors of the later generation, are seen in shorts that recall their schoolboy days. There is virtue in both rigs; perhaps a combination of the two is the ideal bush costume.