Hopping along at Easter

My Easter travels were not greatly adventurous. But I did spend much of one day pleasantly hopping (literally) on and off Christchurch heritage trams. I was assigned, with my camera, to follow Easter Bunny dishing out Easter eggs to tram riders.

I was informed the person within the convincing rabbit suit was Kate.  So I spent the best part of four hours with ``Kate’’ without having a clue as to what she looked like – apart from someone entombed within a rabbit costume. Her speech was muffled so conversation was necessarily minimal.   I did learn that the mysterious ``Kate’’ belonged to a local theatre group. That explained her ability to pose like a rabbit and relate to strangers. Of course, for the four hours, Kate was supposed to be seen as a rabbit, not as a young woman. I was a small number of people who knew the person within was`` Kate.’’ I did find out she was a good friend of tram driver, Tom.

Not so curiously, Tom was the first tram driver to know the Easter Bunny was going to be part of a fun day on the Christchurch tramway.

Easter Bunny was an outstanding, convincing, success. Smaller children had to be encouraged to approach Easter Bunny –their parents doing the encouraging with a gentle push from behind. And Easter Bunny encouraging from the front with an outstretched paw clutching an Easter egg. No matter how timid the youngster, the Easter egg was irresistible. If any children had a pet rabbit at home this Easter Bunny was, by comparison, huge but strangely familiar.

Adults were mostly pleasantly amused by Easter Bunny. Trams were continually crowded with a mix of local people and visitors to Christchurch. Easter good will was to the fore. Tramway staff took to Easter Bunny as a good fun add-on to their day and were keen to have their photograph with Bunny.

The only drawback for ``Kate’’ was the autumn day hitting 23 deg. after several cool, wet, days. No wonder Easter Bunny preferred to stand in the shade.

I eventually spotted the real Kate when, in the tramway office, she removed the rabbit head part of the costume. She reluctantly agreed to a photograph. If, during the previous four hours, I had a vision of ``Kate’’ then it was way off the mark.

The assignment was one of pleasant curiosity.