TEN YEARS AFTER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 271, 14 February 1941, Page 5

TEN YEARS AFTER

SEASIDE RESORTS OF 1951 CHANGE SINCE WAR YEARS (X Hope) (Continued) "This place Ohope," I recalled, "used to be a sort of paradise for the idle rich or a refuge in winter for the homeless poor. Tell me though, what happened in the end over the hit of a sheep track which caused a lot of bother in 1940? I think its proper name was Pohutukawa Avenue, or Park Lane. I just forget what all the argument was about, but there used to be a lot of smoke and hot air and steam generated in the OLD BEACON over this road." Hold on," said my guide, "if you will let me get a word in edgeways I will tell you. "Of course nothing happened in Die end. The road is just as it was. Nobody could over agree on anything, so in the end the Government of the day built this fine new waterfront road on top of the sand dunes whore the lupins used to grow. Only pedestrians and residents' private cars ever use the old road. All the through traffic goes along this two-chain wide boulevard where people really can see the sea. "I see," remarked I facetiously. "I suppose old Bob Scmple came down here and put everybody in their place to stop the argument over that little road." "Oh yes," lie replied. "Bob Avas a terror for building Avide straight roads instead of tinkering with little narrow roads. So when he came to Ohope to have a look he said ! it would be easier to build a new road across the desert like the Army of the Nile did. And here it is. "Good business," I commented as wc sped along. A Look at New Bournemouth. We had a look in at the new seaside resorts which have sprung up along the coast between the Whakatanej and Rangitaiki Rivers. What used to be a desolate Avaste of sand hills has been transformed into ' n picnickers' paradise by the planting of millions of pine trees. From the main coast highway Avhich skirts the laiuhvard side of the sandhills there are aA*cnues running through valleys in the dunes'down to the ocean beach. Hundreds of beach cottages clustered among the pine trees.

"That is the people's playground," I was told. "All this sandhill country has always belonged to the State, and the tree planting was carried out by the Army as part of the demobilisation and repatriation schemes. A lot of the men who could not be at once absorbed into other occupations were kept busy planting the trcos and making, the roads. They brought a lot of Mussolini's machinery back with them from Libya, you know." I remarked that in 1941 the only seaside resort in the district seemed to be at Ohope, and there was hardly any room to picnic there except in front of some resident's gate.

"Things have altered a bit in the last ten years," said my guide. •'Nowadays Ohopo is purely a residential suburb for the well-to-do. Other people come to "New Bournemouth in the Pines" to get their ration of sea air . Of course therei has been a great craze for breathing sea air and paddling in the salt water since the State brought in its free medical scheme. The politicians found it was cheaper to give the people free air than free medicine, so there are all sorts of schemes for getting people to take a look at the sea every day instead of only one? a year." New Road to Opotiki. When we had travelled along the Wavell Parade for a mile or two my guide remarked that this was part of the new coast road from Auckland to Gisborne. "It crosses the mouth of the Ohiwa Harbour by a big bridge and so on to Opotiki," he said. "So Opotiki is only half an hour's trip from Whakatane. Of course, this is a strategic road. The events of the 1940 war showed tlie importance of having good roads along the coastline so that defence forces could travel swiftly from point to point. Only sheep an«l hikers travel along the old highway through the gorge." Things must have been happening in the district, since 1941, thought. This prompted me to inquire how it was that Whakatane had got such a hustle on. f "Oh it was the work of tlie Chamber of Commerce," lies explained. (Continued foot of next colonic)

"They used to makje jokes about the Whakatane Chamber ot Commerce and .say it was as dead as Julius Caesar. But since 1941 the Chamber took a new leare of life, due largely to the influx of new businessmen Avho had progressive ideas and civic pride. There Avas a great battle of the routes between the Chamber ancl the Government as to where the: highway should go between Whakatane and Opotiki, but in the end the coastal route won. After all, this is an age> of fast, road transport, and consequently of straight and level roads, "Another thing the Chamber has. done lias been to adveriise the advan- > tages of Whakatane-as an industrial and distributing centre. And so firms from the cities have opened i\]> establishments here. This is, of course all to the good, of town and country. So there has been a steady demand for land for factories and warehouses, and as you can see we M'vc reclaimed hundreds of acres of ideal mudflats between the Straojl and the Paper Miills. (To be continued)