CAROLINE BAY.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18571, 22 December 1925, Page 3

CAROLINE BAY.

V TIMARU'S FAVOURITE PLAYGROUND. UNRIVALLED BATHING BEACH. Although favoured beyond many of her sister provinces with vast natural resources, with, potentialities for trade and commerce unsurpassed, South Canterbury is pre-eminently a district of playgrounds. From the Southern Alps to the sea, across a hundred miles of mountain, river, and plain, the visitor may indulge in almost every form of sport and relaxation known to pleasureloving humanity; he may climb amongst some of the finest peaks in the world, motor over perfect roads through beautiful rural scenes, fish in streams well stocked with trout and salmon, stalk deer, shoot,,ride to hounds, play golf, tennis, or bowls, as his fancy dictates; yet amongst all the playgrounds none, is more popular, more easily accessible than Caroline Bay. The bay is the first scene to meet the eye of the visitor, as he reaches Timaru. and the last to draw from him a sigh of regret as, his holiday over, the express bears him away. Green lawns and terraces, bright with beds of scarlet and yellow flowers, lead from creepercovered cliffs to a wide sweep of firni white sand, lapped by wavelets, and sheltered from the heavy ocean swell bv the long breakwater of the Eastern Extension. At its eastern end the bay is bounded by the fine Marine Parade alonp- the harbour mole, and to the west by the Benvenue Cliffs, from which a pleasant walk leads over to Waimataitai Beach, shingly as yet, but where the sand that is rapidly accumulating; will before many, years have passed, make a beach that will rival Caroline Bay itself. In summer many hundreds of picnickers spend day after day upon the beach, enjoying to the full each lazy, sundrenched hour; romping in the 6ea, playing tennis, or merely basking with a book. No safer beach, for bathing could be found, for the sand shelves iu a smooth, gentle incline from the water's edge. There are no currents, no undertow, no dangerous surf or auicksands, no pot-holes, and no sharks; a drowning fatality has never been known, though the water is daily ' crowded with bathers. Generally the sea is calm, and barely ripples upon the sand; now and again there is ai slow, slight swell; moire seldom, a south-easterly wind brings with it a boisterous surf, and the surf-board enthusiasts shoot in with shouts of gleo urjon the crests of the waves. Hafts are anchored a short distance from the beach, providing diving-platforms for. swimmers in calm weather, and reeling and swaying to the lift of the seas on rougher days. Splendid tennis courts have been laid" down by the municipality and are in use throughout most of the year. At night, during the summer, powerful electric lamp*, suspended over the courts, make it possible to play, until a late hour. The pavilion, which has the largest and finest dancing floor in Timaru, is available for all sorts of social events, and almost every night there is a dance durinc the Christmas holidays. Swings, slides, see-saws, and round-abouts provide unlimited enjoyment for the children, and it is proposed to lay out as tennis court for children in the near future. Warm and sun-filled by day, crowded with happy holidaymakers and pleasure seekers, Caroline Bay is no less attractive when the sun has set and the shades of evening veil harbour and beach in the dusk. Along the shore, a crescent of electric lamps sheds a soft radiance oyer lawns and promenades, and is reflected in long spears of light in the calm waters beneath Benvenue Cliffs and the Marine Parade. The terraces above the moonlit ocean are pleasant places for an evening stroll in the summer-scented air, with the music of a band drifting out across the beach £rom the rotunda. And so- Caroline Bay comes fully into its own with the advent of summer. To the mountains and the streams zo the alpinists and the anglers, but jjways the beach calls to those who taav not venture so far afield, and those who answer find there enjoyment and iealth in rich measure.