South Island 1951

1951 was the year the family went for its most extensive trip together.  Five of us, and all our luggage, together with two four-gallon tins of petrol tied on the open boot, packed into the Ford Prefect, and set off southwards just before Christmas. We stopped just south of Turangi and slept on the side of the road in our clothes, and went on the next day to Wellington. 

Originally we had planned that the girls would take the overnight express and the boys would drive the car, but that was the year of the railway strike, so the trains were not running.

The only route to the South Island in those days was by the Rangatira to Lyttelton, so we watched our car hoisted on a wooden platform by crane onto the deck, and went down to our cabin and got ready for the overnight journey. This was a lot more relaxing than ten years before, when the wartime precautions like the dousing of all lights made the trip more scary.

The Gaze family in the Square

In the morning we continued to our private hotel near the centre of Christchurch.  Like most tourists we then visited the cathedral and climbed the spire. While we were up in the spire, there was a minor earthquake – the first we had experienced. In hindsight, we were very fortunate that the quake was only a brief, light tremor. 

The highlight of Christchurch for me was riding in the odd trams – some of them had two trailers, and some had two decks.  We had nothing quite so unusual in Auckland.  In fact trams were just about finished there in favour of trolley buses. 

After Christchurch we travelled to Timaru and enjoyed the Christmas fair at Caroline Bay. I don’t remember much about Dunedin, because I later spent a lot of time there.

But by New Year’s Eve we were in Invercargill, staying at the Grand Hotel. On New Year’s Day we took the excursion boat to Stewart Island and wandered around Oban. 

Our next adventure was to tackle the road north to Queenstown, where we enjoyed the sights. Much of this road was still unsealed – so with the boot open the inside of the car was filled with dust. It was about this stage that the horn failed and we warned oncoming traffic by all shouting in unison!  We tried the Milford road as far as Te Anau, but the conditions were too rough for us, so we went on to Queenstown.

In those days the road through Wanaka to Haast had not been built, so we had to return via the east coast to Christchurch, and then on to Wellington and home.