Conditions at the Beaches
Sir, —As a citizen of Wellington, and oile who spends every spare moment out of doors, 1 feel that a complaint is long overdue regarding the state of the bathing facilities at the bays on the eastern side of the harbour. If such complaint has previously been made, nothing has been done during the past few years to Improve the beaches in question. On the sand at Day’s Bay is a hut set aside as a. dressing room for women aud children. Has any member of the Department of Health been, inside this hovel on a fine holiday? . If not, .1 suggest that someone be appointed to inspect it. It is filthy; it is small; it has been known to smell. Some of the cubicles have no nails —not “no hooks”, but “no nails”-—on which to hang clothing. It has a small window and a door, both of which are inadequate. Visit it on a fine day, preferably a Sunday or public holiday, when there is a general exodus from the city, and the women’s shelter may oe mistaken for a second Black Hole of Calcutta. Of the men’s shelter I know nothing—being a woman —but it looks palatial compared with what the women who visit Day’s Bay have put up with for years. Even so, there is in all probability a vast deal of improvement that could be made there.
At Muritai, which boasts long stretches of sand, and where many people would go if the proper facilities were provided, there are no dressing shelters at all! Point Howard is a very popular little beach on any fine day and has a splendid dressing shed, but I have been there on days when one would swear that there was something vei'y dead concealed somewhere inside. IVe are told that the more overseas tourists who visit New Zealand the better, and we know the Publicity Department is doing good work in this direction. Wellington is the capital city and Day’s Bay is one of its most popular summer resorts, as the crowded ferry steamers and motor buses at holiday time prove. 1 imagine that many of the women tourists enjoy a swim as much as anyone, but what their thoughts must be when they see where they must undress I leave to the imagination. There has been much discussion lately over “dogs on the beaches.” Surely it is more important to start the cleaning up of some of the disgusting, filthy, germladen public dressing shelters than to hold wordy warfare over animals unable to defend themselves. Leave the dogs alone and start cleaning up the man-made messes of this city.—l am, etc., ’ A FEMALE OF THE SPECIES. Lower Hutt, January 17.
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Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 9
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455Conditions at the Beaches Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 98, 19 January 1935, Page 9
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