In 2019 I got a message from the W.E.K.A's asking me if I had heard of LíB's OTD series in S. Austrailia and what OTD stood for?... I had no idea and after some research we had found out that it was a series called On This Day (OTD) with a story for each day of the year. Well that sounded like a crazy fun challenge and so the call went out to the Otago and Southland Geocachers to parttake in this series. You'll see in the description that the owners will write in either some muggle, geocaching or personnal facts/stories related to this day.
On this day.... 2 January
The New Year's Eve and New Year's Day celebrations in Scotland are known as Hogmanay and may last into January 2, an annual bank holiday. This holiday is marked with parties, specially prepared foods and the custom of first footing. First footing refers to when someone is the first person to enter a house on January 1. For many people in Scotland, January 2 is a day to recover from the Christmas and Hogmanay celebrations or to spend some quiet time with friends or family members before returning to work on January 3.
The Hogmanay celebration origins can be traced to pre-Christian observances in mid-winter. These included large fires to tempt the Sun back to earth, as well as feasts of the food gathered and harvested in the autumn. Hogmanay was traditionally a more important celebration than Christmas in Scotland.
As alot of the first settlers in New Zealand were from Scotland, this public ('bank') holiday is also observed here.
On 2nd January 1938 the first official New Zealand airmail to the United States left Auckland for San Francisco on Pan American Airways’ Samoan Clipper. The Sikorsky S-42B flying boat was piloted by Captain Ed Musick – then regarded as the world’s most famous pilot – and carried 25,000 items of mail. The mail arrived 6 January.... and airmail is not faster nearly 80 years on.
Please feel free to include in your logs any stories you have regarding today's date and if you are an Otago and Southland Geocacher intrested in the series send me a message.
