The Somerfield resident paired up with her brother, David Grantham, of Lincoln, to relive a journey he did with their late mother Erica and brother Chris in 1960.
David was eight and Chris was 10 when the trio boarded a train with their bikes in tow at Christchurch and got off at Springfield.
“We never had a car when we were kids. We used to bike everywhere. It was just a bit of an adventure,” David said.
“I don’t remember much about the trip apart from hitting the ‘beasterly easterly,’ and recording 47 miles on my cyclometer. But mum often related the story, with a bemused look, that I was so exhausted when I got home I went straight to bed without any dinner.”
Fast-forward to 2022, when he wanted to re-enact the journey. Chris lives in Auckland, but Eunice was keen to accompany him.
“I was a bit nervous, the only time I have ridden that far before was on the Otago Central Rail Trail and just about died after it. That night I was just a wreck,” Eunice said.
“I just had to make myself realise I was fit, and I could do it.”
She said she had not been able to go on the original trip in 1960, being aged only six at the time.
The siblings’ chosen day of February 14 dawned overcast as the forecast for Canterbury was drizzle clearing and southwesters dying out.
They took the TranzAlpine from the Addington train station, leaving behind “a gloomy, cloudy Christchurch.”
Greeting them at Sheffield was bright sunshine, followed by a view of the Torlesse Range, made all the more stunning with a recent dusting of snow.
"The old Christchurch station on Moorhouse Ave we left from was replaced by the brick monolith, opened in November 1960," David said.
"It was badly damaged in the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, and subsequently demolished. Springfield Station was destroyed by fire in 1963 and replaced two years later by the present one.
"On the train, we passed localities where now long-forgotten stations used to be – Sandy Knolls, Aylesbury, Kirwee and Annat."
After the one-hour journey, they set off from Springfield at 9.20am.
With little wind and light traffic, the siblings biked along SH73 to Sheffield, where they indulged in one of the township’s world famous pies.
"In 1960, we kept to SH73 as there was little traffic and open road speeds were lower than today.”
Eunice and David found the weather and traffic conditions favourable.
"Often there was no wind; at other times there was a slight tail wind. We struck patches of sun, cloud and a few spots of drizzle. Traffic was light and overtaking vehicles, particularly trucks with trailers, gave us a wide berth,” David said.
"It was an altogether brilliant trip."
Their sister Esther Simmons' home was conveniently placed along the way at Yaldhurst, where they stopped for lunch.
"As I have no idea which way mum and I biked through Christchurch in 1959, Eunice and I decided to bike from Yaldhurst to Linwood on a route with the least traffic," David said.
They rode on quiet back roads to the university.
From there they took the Uni-Cycle cycleway, stopping at Riccarton House for coffee and a break, and then the Rapanui-Shag Rock cycleway to Linwood.
"At least the Linwood Avenue School is still there over the back fence, so that’s something similar to when we were growing up."
They calculated the journey had involved about three-and-a-half hours of cycling, covering about 75km, about the same distance as the original trip.
They said they coped well with the ride, and Eunice was pleased to report not a single sore muscle.
"I was absolutely fine. The ride was amazing," she said.
"Sixty-two years on from the original ride, there was no beasterly easterly, I wasn’t exhausted when I reached home and I didn’t go straight to bed without eating my dinner," David added.
They had, of course, been helped by bicycle technology of the modern age, riding 24-speed hybrid non-ebike models.
They were quite different to David’s blue child’s bicycle from 1960, which had 24in wheels, a carrier, cyclometer and no gears. And to their mother’s bicycle, which had 26in wheels, a dress guard, carrier and brakes with metal linkages.
"She’d bought it in England in the early days of World War 2, and learnt to ride it as an adult," David said.
