the possibilities of transport on land, water or air". She later wrote that this "was a very great honour". At the end of November, Batten travelled to Sydney where she was going to meet her mother who had left England after hearing of her daughter's breakdown. While in Sydney awaiting the arrival of Ellen Batten, she reunited with Beverly Shepherd. The two spent several days together. In her unpublished memoirs, she wrote that Shepherd struggled with being with someone as famous as her. Once Ellen arrived, she and Batten returned to New Zealand where they would remain for three months. For part of the time, they were joined by Fred Batten, presenting an image of a united family, as her parents' separation was not public knowledge. Christmas was spent in her birthplace of Rotorua, where she was honored by local Māori, as she had been after her 1934 journey. She was given a chief's kahu huruhuru (feather cloak) and conferred with the title Hine-o-te-Rangi – "Daughter of the Skies". In February 1937, Batten, accompanied by her mother, travelled to Sydney to join Shepherd. Publicly, she gave the impression of wanting to continue flying despite friends apparently trying to persuade her to settle down, writing "the fire of adventure that burned within me was not yet quenched" but privately, she expressed a keen desire to marry Shepherd, who was flying from Brisbane to meet her in Sydney. The evening of her arrival on 19 February, she discovered he was missing; the passenger airliner on which he was co-pilot had failed to arrive. Batten was involved in the search for the missing aircraft, even after it was officially called off after five days. The public at large remained unaware of her keen interest in Shepherd; she maintained that her interest was simply as a close friend of one of the missing pilots, describing him as "a great friend of mine". The wreck of the aircraft was discovered in the MacPherson Ranges by a bushman on 28 February, with two survivors. It had crashed during a storm and burst into flames. Shepherd was among the dead. In her unpublished memoirs, Batten admitted to profound grief at the loss of Shepherd. She withdrew from society and with her mother, moved to a flat near Sydney's beaches. The two lived in Australia for the next eight months and for much of this time, Batten was