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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District]

Boating

Boating.

The Avon is too winding, too weedy, and too shallow to be an ideal river for boating; but rowing has flourished in Christchurch from a very early date. The two chief clubs, the Canterbury and the Union, have a long and eventful history, and have supplied many of the best champion crews that have competed in the regattas held not only in Canterbury but in the other provincial centres. At the present time there are four principal rowing clubs—the Canterbury with about 200 members, the Union with about 150, the Avon, and the Christchurch. Rowing is, of course, a summer pastime in New Zealand, and a large proportion of those who play football in winter row in summer. The regatta of Christchurch clubs could hardly be held on the Avon; though club races are of constant occurrence there. Better courses have been chosen in various years at Lake Forsyth (Little River), and on the Heathcote Estuary towards Sumner; and at Kaiapoi the Cure Boating Club for many years made the Waimakariri famous as a school for oarsmen. Apart from the Christchurch Regatta, the Lyttelton Regatta, held on New Year's Day, includes rowing as well as sailing races, and the Akaroa Regatta, held on Anniversary Day (on the 16th of December) is always a favourite holiday meeting with young men. It is difficult for an outsider to realise the amount of time, energy, and enthusiasm spent in and around Christchurch on rowing, and in spite of the disadvantage of being frequently compelled to meet rivals over rough sea courses, these smooth-water oarsmen have worthily upheld the credit of their beautiful little river.

The rowing clubs are domiciled about the East Belt, below which runs a good six-mile stretch to New Brighton. The silting up of the river, and the noxious growth of the anacharis weeds, have interfered sadly with rowing of late years. On the other side of the city, a great deal of pleasure boating is done, and the two boatsheds near the Hospital do a thriving trade. Since the dam at the old Mill Island (Hereford Street Bridge) was removed, the level of the Upper Avon has fallen considerably. But the difficulty of negotiating the weeds and occasional sandbanks is more than repaid by the beauty of the stream and the surrounding trees and verdure. The Avon constitute the chief charm of Christchurch, but no one ever understands the beauty of the Avon who has not floated down under the willows some early summer morning, from the North Belt to the Hospital, or pulled back from New Brighton under an autumn sunset, between the high green banks, tinted with the changing hues of the dying leaves. But the ordinary boating man is more practical than imaginative, and he would discount much of the picturesqueness for a straight course and
Opening of the Boating Season

Opening of the Boating Season

page 57 a greater depth of water. Still, when with other great events in the city's rowing annals, memory recalls the deeds of the famous Christchurch crew that ventured across to Sydney, and worthily maintained the honour of New Zealand against the cracks on the “other side,” it has to be admitted that, in spite of its disadvantages, the Avon seems to provide as good a training ground for oarsmen as any other rowing course in the colony.