Friday, November 8th, 2013
Wowzers - what a great day! We were collected at our Franz Joseph hotel at 9:30 AM and dropped off at our Nelson Hotel around 7:30 PM. Ten hours on (and off) the road and the time flew!
We travelled in a 50 passenger coach but the largest number of passengers at any one time today was 22 so we had lots of room to sprawl. Our first coffee stop was at the Bushman's Centre at Pukehera - a cafe, museum, wildlife park and generally very weird place! Our driver, Glenn warned us, prior to arrival, that a sense of humour is required before visiting this place dedicated to hunting. Here's one of the first signs we saw.
Possum pies, as it turns out, were off the menu today. They had been confiscated by the department of health and a court case was pending due to their use, and sale, of uninspected meat.
I need to mention the fact that possums are legal prey for hunters in this country. New Zealand has no native land mammals - every land mammal in the country was introduced. Many, such as rabbits, possums, stoats and deer have since caused major problems. The populations of rabbits, possum and deer rapidly increased and they began decimating the native vegetation. Stoats were imported to control the rabbit population but rabbits are hard to catch and flightless birds and their eggs easy prey. So all species of kiwi are now endangered because of the proliferation of the stoat. Pictured here is a stoat/ possum trap - found on many of the forest walks we've done on this Island. Possum are hunted and trapped and their fur is a valuable commodity, today selling for $125./kg. It is an incredibly good insulator as the hair strands are hollow. A merino/possum blend is much more popular for warmth than pure merino now.
Back to the Bushman's Center. I got a kick out of the Canadian currency exchange rate on the poster on the door.
Yes the family who run this place are unique! We had a 40 minute stop here - time for a coffee, to browse the 'shop' and visit the animals in their park.
We continued north past Ross, a gold town where about 100 oz of gold is still being extracted every day in an open pit mining operation next to the highway. This town is famous for the 3 kg nugget discovered here in 1909. It's now located in Buckingham Palace. The locals have been trying to get it back but cannot even get a response from the palace.
In Greymouth, a coal, gold and fishing town on the coast, our coach population dropped to 10 when passengers boarded the train to travel Arthur's Pass, through the Alps, to Christchurch. We continued on one of the most scenic roads we've ever traveled. We stopped to view the pancake rocks and blowholes on the coastal route.
At Westport we turned to follow the eastern route through the Buller Gorge.
Then we gradually began to see farmlands and yellow broome again before entering an area of more mountains and the Kahurangi national forest. Scene after scene after natural beauty! Before we knew it, we were being dropped off at our Nelson Hotel. What a great road trip!
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