Long, Hot Walk

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31586, 25 January 1968, Page 2

Long, Hot Walk

Three Christchurch grandmothers accepted the challenge of an 11-year-old boy recently and walked over the Bridle Path from the Heathcote railway station to Lyttelton. They are Mesdames Lallie Hall, Mary Blake and Nan Randall. The boy is Mrs Hall’s grandson, Austin Russell, of Leithfield, who set the pace. Mrs Hall said she had accepted the challange because her own grandmother and grandfather had walked over the same track from Lyttelton when they emigrated to New Zealand from Britain aboard the Lady Jocelyn. Mrs Hall’s grandmother walked over the path to Christchurch with a kitchen table strapped on her back —and she was expecting a baby at the time. “My grandfather was Mr Arthur William Woodward, the first organist at St Matthew’s Church, St Albans,” said Mrs Hall. Her father was 11 when he walked over the Bridle Path with the pioneer family the same age as Mrs Hall’s grandson. When interviewed in Lyttelton after the hike over the hill on a hot summer day, the three grandmothers had decided to return to Heathcote by train.