Invercargill’s pooled resources
Southland’s largest swimming pools were the 100 foot x 40 foot (30.4m x 12.2m) Conon Street pool which opened on December 1, 1927 and the Queens Park or Coldstream Pool which opened on March 4, 1970. Splash Palace opened on February 1, 1997.
At the opening of the 25m Coldstream Pool, now demolished, there were demonstrations of lifesaving by girls from Southland College and a display of the different types of swimming by prominent young swimmers.
There was also a demonstration of skindiving by Stephen and Tony Neilson aged nine and seven.
The boys swam a length of the pool underwater.
There was talk at the time of a second pool – an open air Olympic Pool in South Invercargill. ‘‘If it’s a bit cold, well they will scamper all the faster,’’ they said. It doesn’t really work that way.
Springboks
The first visit by the Springboks to Southland was on August 6, 1921.
Joe Hardy, a rugby writer who had attended the game as a child reminisced…
‘‘A great day for Southland rugby. To understand how important the visit of the Springboks was in the eyes of all local enthusiasts, and in the eyes of New Zealand rugger men generally, it is necessary to go back a little in rugby history. The Springboks were not meeting Southlanders for the first time – they had met before at Neuve Eglise in France within the sound of the front-line guns.
‘‘On 6 August the temperature had fallen to zero and snow had fallen over a wide area of Southland.
‘‘When the visitors awoke they looked out on an all-white world. By starting time, 2.30pm, a fitful watery sun had melted most of the snow but a lot of slush lay around the field.
‘‘Billy Stead, the Southland coach, had made a trip to see the Springboks play South Canterbury at Timaru and he had a notebook crammed with details of the South Africans’ play and gave the Southland team a thorough briefing on what they were to do and not to do.
‘‘The maroons gave a Ma¯ori war cry and the South Africans responded with a cry of their own, ‘‘in koma ni nar nyat. Heehee-hee,’’ (which apparently means ‘Are you buffaloes? Ha, ha, ha.’)
‘‘South Africa 12; Southland nil.’’
Little redpoll
Southland’s smallest introduced bird is the redpoll which arrived around 1909, having spread from introductions further north.
The redpoll is a finch and also probably Southland’s commonest bird with flocks of thousands visiting seed sources through the winter. It has also colonised the Subantarctic islands including Macquarie which is an Australian possession.
Having thus arrived in ‘‘Australia’’ under its own steam, and breeding on Macquarie, it qualifies as an Australian native species and is about the hardest Australian native bird to spot.