Waitangi Day activities

Press, 3 February 1984, Page 5

Waitangi Day activities

Soldiers from Burnham Military Camp will take to the water at Okains Bay on ' Monday as part of the Waitangi Day celebrations there. About 50 soldiers are expected to paddle a 20m totara canoe up the river. The canoe, which is one of the main exhibits at the Okains Bay Maori and Colonial Museum, is launched on the river annually to celebrate Waitangi Day.

The soldiers are expected to arrive at Okains Bay

today and will spend the week-end practising steering the canoe, according to the museum’s director, Mr Murray Thacker. On Waitangi Day the canoe will arrive at the bay at 9.45 a.m. At 10 a.m. there will be races between three 7m traditional Maori canoes. A first prize of $2OO is offered with heats held the preceding two days. The Governor-General’s representative, LieutenantCommander W. Gilray, will be challenged at the official

ceremony on the marae outside the museum, at 2.15 p.m.

Other activities planned for the day are children’s races, sawing competitions, and demonstrations of pot-tery-making, spinning, Maori carving, printing machines, wheel weighting, and saddle making. Elsewhere on Waitangi Day music fans from throughout New Zealand will attend the Sweetwaters South festival — 12 hours of music at Queen Elizabeth II Park. At Lancaster Park,

New Zealand will play England in the fourth day of the second cricket test and at Riccarton racecourse, the Canterbury Jockey Club will hold its summer meeting. A surf life-saving carnival will be held at Taylors Mistake and the Canterbury Yachting Association’s regatta will be held on Lyttelton Harbour. The centenary of the Canterbury Bowling Club will be celebrated with a tournament there and the Canterbury Car Club will hold a gymkhana at Ruapuna.