A TOURIST ATTRACTION

Te Ao Hou, July 1958, Page 22

A TOURIST ATTRACTION By the beginning of the warmer weather Opo had begun to be a drawcard. One of my daughters who had to work at weekends as the proprietor of the tearooms was unable to cope with the crowds. By the time the Xmas holidays had begun Opo had really hit the headlines. The tearooms were doing a roaring trade and two other helpers had to be employed. We asked our daughter how many people were there each day and she said round about fifteen hundred to two thousand. We were a bit sceptical so we went to Opononi one Sunday afternoon, just out of idle curiosity.

If I had not seen it for myself I would never have believed it. I have heard of traffic jams and crowded beaches but to see them at Opononi was a wonderful experience. This did not happen once or twice but every Saturday and Sunday. Cars, buses, trucks, vans and motor-bikes were seen parked on either side of the road for half a mile or more on each side of Opononi, with barely room to drive along the centre of the road. If a vehicle was held up or was to meet one coming the opposite way a traffic jam was the immediate result. Traffic was so congested at times that officers had to be brought in to direct it. Two officers were on duty most Sundays and they did a very good job in untangling traffic. Two Sundays before Opo died a special parking place was made available which was a very real boon. These are my own reflections after her demise. I had never seen her with her mouth open. When she died I had a look at her mouth and I was surprised at her teeth. She had conical teeth about one and a half inches long, about one inch apart in both jaws. If she had a notion to be savage she would have been able to rip a person to pieces with one bite. With the record traffic on the roads I never heard of a single motoring accident in coming to or returning to Opononi. As for swimmers there were easily over a hundred young and old in the water but there was not a single drowning fatality. With all these people coming during the weekends, Saturdays in particular when up to 1500 people were jammed on the beach, there was no case of drunkenness, fights or arguments. Everybody was in the gayest of holiday moods.