New Year’s Eve plunge ‘cold as it was 50 years ago’

Robin Bickley pictured in the Otago Daily Times playing his bugle in Lake Wakatipu to usher in the 1970s.

Fifty years after ushering in the 1970s by jumping into Lake Wakatipu and blowing his bugle, Robin Bickley returned to Queenstown to welcome the new decade in the same quirky fashion.

Mr Bickley marks his 50th-anniversary New Year’s Eve splash in Lake Wakatipu. PHOTO: PHILIP CHANDLER

After accepting the challenge from Queenstown mate Lawrence McSkimming, the former Southlander, now living in Christchurch, said: "I tell you what, the water is as cold as it was 50 years ago."

Mr Bickley recalled jumping off the pier three New Year’s Eves in a row, but, now aged 75, he entered the water more sedately this time.

But once in the lake, he again played reveille on the same well-worn bugle, with strings hanging off it, that has accompanied him almost his whole life.

"It was originally from the Southland Boys’ High School brass band or bugle band."

Something that’s also not changed is that, as on New Year’s Eve in 1968, 1969 and 1970, an Otago Daily Times photographer was on hand to record the occasion.

Comment now