Lions circle the stage coach

Bethlehem Te Puna Lions, Marilyn McRae and Martin Buchanan

Lions & the Stagecoach from Sun Live on Vimeo.

It sits forlornly in all weathers at the front of the Historic Village on 17th Ave – a fading red monument to travel in another age. It's the village stage coach.

'The paintwork's cracking and in terrible shape,” says Bernie Allen of the Bethlehem Te Puna Lions. 'The woodwork needs to be filled in several places. And it's been graffitied.”

At best, it's a mess, according to Bernie, and deteriorating.

But the Lions are pretty good at sniffing out a worthwhile community project and made a pitch to the Historic Village management. The village told them to 'match the colours and go for it.”

A pride of Lions including Bernie, Marilyn McRae and Martin Buchanan, started sanding down the stagecoach and have spent about eight hours on the project already. 'It's going to take a helluva lot more,” says Bernie. ”There's a lot more to this job than I first thought. But we will just fiddle around whenever we can.”

They have the will, the skills and a trade account to do the job, to preserve it. 'It'll also have to be shifted from the front of the village to make way for some additional buildings,” says Bernie. 'Hopefully it'll go under cover.”

Earlier this week when the team was slapping on some primer, a local with some knowledge of the coach wandered by. 'He reckoned it was made on-site at the Historic Village,” says Bernie.

But that's as historic as the stage coach gets apparently. Because like a lot of the Historic Village, it's historic in name only. Of the 60 buildings at the historic village just six are officially classified historic.

The stage coach is not historic. It's a plywood mock-up, made 20-30 years ago. It's a replica of the Cobb and Co stage that once ran the Direct Rd between Tauranga and Rotorua. The wheels are the real McCoy – made on-site by a wheelwright or blacksmith. And on special days at the Historic Village there would be rides – a team of Clydesdales were brought in from Pyes Pa to haul the stage coach.

'Give it a couple of good weeks' work and we will start to show you something,” says Bernie of the Bethlehem Te Puna Lions. Like a bright red, rejuvenated, less than historic plywood stage coach in an historic setting.

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1 comment

Great contributing hopefully appreciated

Posted on 22-07-2017 23:40 | By Murray.Guy

I'm sure the stagecoach was fully refurbished only 5 or 6 years back by the Men's Shed at the Historic Village so it is disappointing to note that like the Te Awanui Waka it has been left to rot. it would be great if a community group could adopt the cities Waka and provide it with the TLC it's so desperately deserves and needs.


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