The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 12 (March 1, 1939.)
Playgrounds of Picton
Playgrounds of Picton.
During the past weeks I have been enjoying a holiday in Picton—a sports-writer endeavouring to get a spell away from sport! However, not altogether to my disappointment, I have not been able to get away from sport in its entirety—I do not think such a thing would be possible anywhere in New Zealand.
From the sun-porch of my temporary home I stood and watched cricketers play until 7 p.m.—no thoughts of 6 o'clock closing (of hotels or innings) seemed to worry these “flannelled fools”; from another vantage point I watched rowers going through their training for the New Zealand Championship Regatta to be held on the smooth waters of Queen Charlotte Sound; yachtsmen and those who find their sport in motor-boats continually called at and left Picton on their ways to the many sheltered bays; swimmers—not so many, because of a plague of sandflies—basked in the sunshine of Picton's foreshore, within 50 yards of the busiest portion of the town; tennis players were seen in numbers, many of them taking tennis racquets with them to the guest houses “across the Sounds.” It was just another week in a New Zealand summer and Picton was just a typical New Zealand town—a town where “Fitness Week” is every week in the year.
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