IDEAL HOLIDAY WEATHER

Southland Times, Issue 25335, 11 April 1944, Page 4

IDEAL HOLIDAY WEATHER

Racegoers Flock To Riverton At one time it looked as if the Easter holidays this year would be remembered not only because of the travel restrictions, but also because of bad weather. The driving rain from the east which fell continuously throughout Friday and caused flooding in some parts of the province showed signs of continuing for a day or two. However, on Saturday morning there was a marked and welcome improvement. The weather continued to improve, and yesterday was, from the point of view of weather, the best day of the holidays. , So the luck of the Riverton Racing Club in the matter of weather held. Probably few of the thousands of people who were interested in the annual meeting of the club dared to hope, after the unpleasant weather on. Friday, that the first day of the meeting would be favoured with such good weather as that which prevailed on Saturday. Yesterday the weather was ideal. It-was a perfect autumn day with warm sunshine after a slight frost in the morning. It was a day for a holiday out of doors and despite the travel restrictions, which meant that no special trains and no special buses ran to the racecourse, thousands of people travelled to Riverton by road. The result was a considerably larger crowd than the one which attended the second day of the club’s meeting on Easter Monday last year, when buses and trains handled a large proportion of the crowd. The Riverton races were the principal sporting event of the day. There were golf matches at Otatara and the Easter tournament of the Southland Bowling Centre .was continued in the Cl Not a great many people visited Bluff during the day. ' It is probable that because of travel restrictions far more people than usual spent Easter Monday at home this year, and no doubt many suburban gardens received more attention than usual in the way ot preparatory work for the coming winThe town was very quiet for the greater part of the day. It will begin to get back to normal when the shops reopen today, but for many people today will be a holiday because the majority of offices do not reopen until tomorrow.