Santa Claus comes to Taranaki towns
Thousands of people lined the streets in Taranaki towns on Saturday hoping to catch a glimpse of the jolly fat man.
Christmas parades were held in Waitara, Inglewood and Ha¯wera and all attracted big crowds.
Waitara Lions Club secretary Dawn Laurence said things had gone pretty well with their parade, which kicked off at 10am and attracted 35 floats representing different community groups.
‘‘I think we usually get the whole town coming out,’’ Laurence said. ‘‘It went really well. We always have a good parade out here, it seems, and this year was as good as ever.’’
Two hours later Santa Claus had made his trip to Inglewood where he was surrounded by a brass and Scottish pipe band, police cars with lights and sirens blaring, fire engines, tractors, horse-drawn buggies, trucks and motorbikes as he made his way around the town’s main street.
The parade was organised by the Inglewood Lions Club, and Kevin Knowles, chairman of the projects committee, said members were really impressed with how the day went.
"There was a good turnout of floats and a great turnout of spectators. "It all went off really smoothly." Further south the Bizlink Ha¯wera Street Festival and Christmas Parade got under way at 10am and culminated with the parade at midday –which Santa was able to make it to, thanks to his magic sleigh.
The event included street performers, belly dancers, face painting, a merry-go-round, polejousting, the Peacock Ladies stilt dancers and a bouncy castle.
Organiser Nikki Watson said the event had been very successful and had attracted more than 40 floats with more than a thousand people lining the route.
‘‘It was really well supported. The streets were full of people.’’
The theme for the floats was ‘‘Recycled Christmas’’ and Watson said she was amazed by the standard of creativity that had gone into some of them.
‘‘The work that went into these floats was incredible.’’