Southbridge

This weekend 24 - 26 October 2015 our small town of Southbridge celebrates it's 150th year anniversary.  Our family roots go back deep in this town, in fact to the days when there was no real road to Southbridge from their farm called "Bridgefield" at Lakeside.  To get to Southbridge my great grandparents had to follow red ribbons tied to bushes to find the track.

This was a wonderful town to grow up in.  It's population now is still only 720.  There are around 260 houses.  I've always enjoyed the fact we are close to the Pacific Ocean, Lake Ellesmere and the mighty Rakaia, one of Canterbury's braided rivers.

This is a photograph of the corner of Southbridge Park which I took a few years back.  It was this very corner where my friends and I used to come as teenagers and hold birthday parties for our horses!

 

Below: The fields around Southbridge are golden in Summer and Autumn. 

Below : Southbridge from the air, Lake Ellesmere in the background

Below : Looking towards the Southern Alps

Back at an earlier Southbridge Centenary in the 1960's Uncle Ron (left) and Dad (right)

did a re-enactment of my grandfather's transport firm,  later merged into Ellesmere Transport.

Below: the main street of Southbridge.  Yes it really is often this quiet!