March 25 – Punakaiki and Reefton

March 25 – Punakaiki  & Reefton
Most of group has decided to forgo the scheduled tour and either hike or just rest today. Three of us decided to do the bus tour.
We drove north for an hour. It started raining after a half hour but cleared up as we got to the Cape Foulwind Trail. We hiked the 2 mile trail that wound its way around above 2 bays ending at a platform overlooking rocks where there is a seal colony. As we got to our bus it started raining again. We were glad it waited.
We drove an hour to Reefton. This is the first town to have the whole town electrified for lighting. They built the first hydro-electric plant. We met Paul who explained that Reefton was established when gold was found in the river. Originally, gold was panned but it ran out after a few years. It was then discovered that the quartz rocks contained gold and there were ei s of quartz running underground. The used a process to smash the rocks into fine powder which has was then run over mercury using water. The mercury attracted the gold and everything else washed away. They had a second process that separated the mercury from the gold. They continued to pull gold put until the 1950’s. In 2000, they started open pit mining but stopped last year when the price of gold was less than the processing costs.
We had a lovely lunch at Paul’s bakery. He walked us up to the Museum of Stuff where we met Bob who showed us things they have collected from residents when they are getting rid of old things. It contained things from the 1860’s to the 1960’s. Clothing, household appliances, housewares, machinery, magazines, books, … Just about everything.
We walked up the hill to meet Bill who demonstrated an original machine for pulverized quartz and separating out the gold. This was followed by a short walk through the beech tree forest to Howard’ house. Howard bought a rundown house in 1970 for $250. When he got the deed, he found that he owned the 2 acres on either side of the house running down to the river. He has spent many years fixing up the house and improving the property. We sat down and had tea and hot cross buns. It was a nice afternoon meeting different people in a small town that is proud of their history,
Two movie-related notes:
Howard raced motorcycles in NZ against Burt Munro (Watch the movie World’s Fastest Indian to learn about Burt)
Howard’s next door neighbor is Stuart Dryburgh, the award winning cinetographer. Movies include The Piano.
Tomorrow we will visit a sheep farm and then head to Christchurch Airport for a flight to our last NZ destination, Wellington.