It was still raining when we got up this morning, but it cleared after we visited the Ross Information Centre (in an old Bank of NSW building – Bank of NSW in New Zealand???). The Information Centre was also a museum and a gold panning spot, where you paid $15 to be shown how to pan for gold. Aylee and Nate both had a go and ended up with their vial of gold dust and a speck of Pounamu (greenstone or NZ Jade).
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| Ross Township |
Nate had wanted some greenstone ever since the Hangi in Christchurch, and as we were now in Greenstone territory we had mentioned this to the owner of the pub last night. He said that the cafe here in Ross was the best value spot around, so that was our next stop. Coffee and hot chocolates, while we checked out the Pounamu display of the works of Graham Gordon - $25 a piece here, instead of the $75-odd charged by the galleries (with their commission) in Hokitika just up the road. Nate selected his piece and Jill had to have one too.
Off we went to Hokitika where we parked the Motorhome for a stroll up the street. We came to a little "bits and pieces" shop and purchased a small piece of Pounamu. We were chatting to the lady and mentioned that we had a couple of Graham Gordon's works from Ross. It so happened that Graham was selling his works in a market just behind the shop we were in. What an interesting man. We had quite a chat with him. He gave both Nate and Aylee small pieces and I purchased a larger piece for $10.
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| Meeting Graham and samples of Pounamu |
We walked further down the street and ended up having Pizza at Fat Pipi Pizza, famous for their whitebait pizzas. Unfortunately, they were out of whitebait (it was a busy Easter Saturday) so Aylee and I shared a Marina Pizza, and Jill and Nate a gluten free Aloha (Hawaiian). The pizzas were good and Jill had some left over for tea.
Back on the road we filled up with fuel and headed further north to Greymouth, and then northeast towards Reefton where we intended to stay the night at a DOC campsite at Slab Hut Creek. We stopped at a miner’s memorial not too far out of town and had a look around. Quite sobering to read about the number of tragedies in this industry over the years, just in the Greymouth area (including the 2010 tragedy at Pike River).
We continued on through farming country (lots of irrigation, dairying, corn, deer, sheep) before getting into hillier country.
Slab Hut Creek was a delightful spot. Our camp was right on the creek. We were in gold mining territory, but unfortunately didn’t have a pan. This didn't stop the children from trying. Later we went for a nice walk along a track beside the creek (which incidentally has very brown water - so different to the blue and milky water from the glaciers).
Saw some very unusual fungi along the track and a weka back at camp, which is a bit cute.
Dinner tonight is instant noodles and leftover pizza. We're on a mission to eat as much on board stuff as possible before departure day on Tuesday.
