The Great Car Rally
About twenty people gathered at the Z station on the corner of Johns Road to receive their instructions and leave at three minutes intervals for the journey. In each car there was a driver and a navigator – sometimes two.
Lois, Cath Costello and I headed as ordered down Johns Road hunting for the Fish & Game headquarters where we had to collect the first answers. Yes we got the number and the building material and the trees, but where were those pesky animals that were supposed to be in front? They’d gone and at 80 kph we couldn’t stop. Eventually I wrote ‘None - they disappeared.’ As they had.
Then as we drove on we debated the members of our club who were JPs - not an easy question but over coffee someone whispered the right answer and we got a flush hand wiuth Wayne Lyons, Doug Archbold, Stuart Batty, Gordon Shields and Denis Robertson. This is vital information if ever we need a document signed.
We headed on past the Christchurch Men’s Prison but missed what buildings lay around the Concrete tower in the field just beyond the prison … the women’s prison. I can’t imagine that there was much of link between the two.
We thought it was Nova Trust but it was Christchurch Women’s Prison! (and incidentally near the home where Angela lived as a child). We thought we were last but at this point Ken, Glenys and Norma in their car and Robbie and Sue in theirs were behind us here.
Where had they been?
We did get the phone number of St Saviour’s Anglican church in Templeton. Those who cheated and used their cell phones got it wrong … ‘Ha! Ha!’
By then we were headed down the back roads to Rolleston where we had afternoon tea at the Drangonfly Café. The chatter here went on for nearly an hour and then we had to find out who opened the local police station. It was a good thing we walked over and found the plaque because it was Anne Tolley and not Amy Adams as we all thought.
We then had a little ‘tiki tour’ of Rolleston. In the year or so since I had been there it has grown exponentially with new shops, a wonderful new secondary school and an aquatic centre. We were in no hurry to arrive for dinner and Lois, who has an office in the town, was a great guide.
Then it was onwards down back roads to our dinner stop at the Yaldhurst Talbot Hotel. Did you know that the Weedons’ Tennis Club opened on 23rd September and that someone off Kirk Road has a mail box modelled on Manfred von Richthofen’s tri-plane the Red Baron? He was a German World War I fighter ace.
The stop at the Talbot hotel for dinner was particularly pleasant and the whitebait fritters which most of us had were wonderful.
Our thanks to Angela for organising such a fun day.