FROM AFAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26708, 1 March 1948, Page 6

FROM AFAR

ROUND THE HILLS THOUSANDS WERE WATCHING Curving round the city, Dunedin’s amphitheatre of hills was alive with groups of people who, although they did not have the best seats for the show, probably saw the rockets and higher displays to their best advantage. The night shook with dull detonations which were deafening to those closer to the explosions, and the whole sky was at times alight with a soft silvery glow. On every vantage point on the hills within sight of Hancock Park stood and sat those spectators who, for some reason or other, had not been able or willing to visit the actual scene of the entertainment. St. Clair, Caversham, Mornington, Highgate, Pine Hill, Signal Hill and Anderson’s Bay all provided suitable sites for seeing the fireworks from afar, and, aided by radios in cars and on balconies, the spectators enjoyed the show to the best of their ability. The highest spur of Jiibilee Park, the intersection of the old Stuart street cable car line and Pacific street with Highgate, Prospect Park and Signal Hill proved especially popular, and under the cloak of anonymity provided by the darkness, spectators relaxed sufficiently to sit on the footpath and make comments of undisguised appreciation. In one respect the watchers on the hills at St. Clair and about

Tomahawk had an advantage over those in Hancock Park. They were afforded on several occasions a particularly charming sight as the beach, with white-capped waves rolling in, and the sandhills were brilliantly lit up.

Against the sombre backdrop of the low cloud, the display was most effective from a distance, with the gay lights of the city buildings illuminated for the centenary and the traced outlines of the two corvettes at Birch street wharf, adding to the carnival effect.

While the glittering cascades of colour from the rockets could only be appreciated fully by those who were viewing them from a distance, the set pieces were an inevitable disappointment. All that could be seen of them, without the aid of binoculars, was a glow above the buildings which intervened between the actual display and the spectators’ line of vision, with an occasional • tantalising scatter of detonating rockets, bursting higher than the rest, to excite their interest. This was particularly the case in the piece representing the battle of Cape Matapan, in which the thundering guns of the warships re-echoed round the silent hills in an impressive fashion.

In the city area itself, little could be seen except from the top of some high building. Many inmates of private hospitals were able to move to suitable windows, and the fiat roof of the Public Hospital proved a convenient spot for both patients and staff alike, reluctant to leave the hospital and break bounds. Compared with the terrific crowd which converged on Hancock Park, the thousands of people who were watching from a distance were in a definite minority, but their enjoyment was, if possible, all the more keen for their limited participation in Dunedin’s gayest civic celebration in her first 100 years.