Royal flying display

Press, 4 March 1989, Page 8

Royal flying display

PA Dunedin Even the albatrosses behaved well when the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, opened the Trust Bank Royal Albatross Centre at Taiaroa Heads yesterday.

The Princess saw a “wonderful flying display” and an albatross chick moved out from under its parent, the Otago Peninsula Trust’s chairwoman, Mrs Bernice Barnett, said. Mrs Khyla Camp replied for the Princess and her party, which included the Minister of Conservation, Mr Woollaston,. and Mrs Woollaston.

After a speech of welcome from Mr Kuac Langsbury and a reply

from Mr Woollaston, the Princess greeted four representatives from the group. “She’s a lovely person, down to earth, she’s like her father,” one of those greeted, Mrs Pickering, said. She had seen her in Gisborne in 1969. “She was very pleased to be here. She was looking anxiqus to get up the hill and see the birds,” Boyd Russell said. While cameras flashed and onlookers whispered, the Princess entered the new visitor reception centre and received a posy.

Mrs Barnett said the Princess was the second member of the Royal

Family to visit the colony — the Queen Mother visited it in 1958. It was a project of national and international importance, being the only mainland-based albatross colony in the world, she said. The new visitors’ reception centre was an “excellent functional building,” she said. It would have a strong emphasis on education. Princess Anne unveiled a plaque commemorating the opening of the new centre. She spoke to a former wildlife ranger before viewing the albatrosses and the Armstrong Disappearing Gun.