The members of the Weyburn Rotary Club played host to a delegation of five couples from New Zealand for several days last week, as part of the Rotary Friendship Exchange Program.
Four couples from Weyburn, plus a couple from Moose Jaw, ventured down under in February for a visit and tour of the South Island of New Zealand, and some of the host couples returned for a visit to the Weyburn area, finishing their time in Canada with a visit in Saskatoon before flying home again.
One of the visitors, Gary Williams, is a past district governor for Rotary District 9980 (which is the last district worldwide in the list of districts), noted their district in the South Island is 13,500 kilometres from Weyburn, with only a club on the southernmost tip of Argentina farther south in the world than they are.
He is from Dunedin, a city of 120,000, the largest city by area in New Zealand (Auckland is the largest by population).
Other home areas of the visitors were the Taieri plains (pronounced “towery”), and Invercargill, known as the home of the Indian Scout motorcycle which set a land speed record for motorcycles.
He noted Invercargill only has 1.6 per cent of New Zealand’s population but 20 per cent of the island nation’s exports.
Areas of interest in this area includes the city of Queenstown, and the Cluthe River which has three hydroelectric dams on it to help supply the island’s electrical needs.
It’s also home of a large aluminum smelter, using bauxite imported from New Zealand’s “west island” of Australia.
The area is also well-known for wineries, and for the invention and development of bungee-jumping, invented by a man from Queenstown.
The host couples in Weyburn took their Kiwi visitors to several points of interest in Weyburn and area, including visiting the Parrish & Heimbecker terminal, Bernie Kot’s bison farm and Dale and Deana Mainil’s farm north of Weyburn, along with a free day when the visitors could take in a round of golf, and visit the Turner Curling Museum and Soo Line Historical Museum.
There were also day trips to Regina and Moose Jaw, including a side-trip to Ogema to ride the tourist train, before they travelled up to Saskatoon for their final taste of Canada.
