Weather keeps campers at bay

Press, 30 December 1982, Page 1

Weather keeps campers at bay

Lone lifeguards stood solitary sentinel at their North Canterbury beach postings as rain yesterday afternoon drove holidaymakers back beyond the sandhills.

A milder morning had drawn some people to the beaches but a southerly change soon cleared them. In their shelters, paid lifeguards gazed out to cold seas dirtied by river discharge. Spencer Park, Pines-Kairaki, Woodend, and Waikuku beaches all have a lifeguard on duty from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Since Christmas their eight-hour shifts have seen few swimmers and no rescue.

Mr John Dimick, who spent a lonely Wednesday at Waikuku Beach, said the beach was marred by two rips and a bar. The bar could cause problems in the New Year when he expected more people to take to the surf. For the Canterbury Surf Life-saving Association the quiet start to summer must come as a relief. It was worried that lifeguards would be taxed by holiday crowds. City beaches have two lifeguards during the week but those in North Canterbury have only one.

Little more than canvas flapping colourfully and closed caravans were to be seen at the beach camps yesterday. Most campers had taken cover indoors; some had driven away to spend the day in Christchurch or Rangiora.

Those who ventured outside were wrapped in windjackets, often heading for the

camp store or one of the holiday activity programmes organised annually by religious groups.

Camp caretakers said numbers staying were much the same as last year, and few had packed up because of bad weather or boredom. Many of the sites were booked from year to year Spencer Park had extended. making sites more spread out and the big Waikuku Beach camp was two-thirds full. Behaviour had been orderly and camps had had little trouble with unauthorised visitors. New Year's Eve could be busier. At most camping grounds the campers gather for organised celebrations. A beach carnival is planned at Waikuku on January 2. The best of both worlds was sought by those who formed streams of morning and evening traffic to commute to work each day. Many families had transported all the comforts of home just a few miles up the road. Others had travelled from the North Island, or the West Coast, to take up a favourite possie.

“It is out of town,” “A chance to get a wav from it all,” “More to do.”’ - these are just some of the reasons given for a motor camp stay. However, the neatly arranged sites and facilities on tap are more than a little reminiscent of suburban streets. But the neighbours are different. Christchurch shops busy, page 4