Leading from the front issuu

chapter three
the WESTSHORe
years
Following the joyous wedding which gathered 70
guests in Catherine’s beloved home town, New
Plymouth; the newlyweds kicked off their honeymoon
in a cabin at Mokau, which looked out over the
Tasman Sea. They couldn’t see much on arrival though
as darkness had already fallen. The next day they drove
on to Jessie and Robert’s bach at Taupo and enjoyed a
week of r & r that included quite a lot of fishing for trout
on the lake.
Back home in Napier they started small, taking up residence
in a caravan at the Westshore Camping Ground.
They named their temporary home Navarac (caravan
backwards), and stayed there for a year while they saved
for their own place. “Fun and hippy-ish” is how Pat recalls
their “camping” days and he realised he’d definitely
married the right woman: “She had more money than
me. I even lived off her for a while!” Meanwhile, he was
busy developing Robert Magill Ltd into a carpet store
of significance and Catherine, now the respected and
popular Sister Magill, continued to impress with her serene
and exemplary nursing skills.
Pat became a Westshore fan from the time he trained
his prized horse Manyana along the beach, and Catherine
came to love the area too. Hardly anyone else
wanted to live there at the time though. Westshore was
pretty shabby, especially along Charles Street which
was known as “old wharfie land.” Most of their peers
Top: Sunset on the Taranaki coastline; Middle: Untitled —
Westshore from Bluff Hill, Napier, Sophia Davidson, gifted by
Mrs Margaret Perry, Collection of Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust,
Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, 2017/7/44; Bottom: Westshore today,
showing the land between the Westshore Spit and the Poraite
hills, which rose 1.5m as a result of the 1931 earthquake.
The Westshore years 29