The Stickney Family Blog: 15 Feb

We stayed at a bed and breakfast, The Oak Lodge, just north of Greymouth. The property was beautiful and the owners, ex-sheep ranchers, were really friendly and offered the boys a morning on the farm.

We all donned gum boots and fed eels (yes, a small creek filled with 3 foot long eels), sheep, fish and chickens. Boys had a blast.

Train didn't leave until about 1:00 so we ventured south to the small coastal of Hokitika to take a look around.

Our B & B

Owners had about 80 head of sheep. Andy was a pro by this point.

Collecting eggs

Downtown metropolitan Hokitika

In Hokitika "the thing" is jade as it is found locally. I've never been big on getting "the thing", but it was pretty enough and there wasn't much else to see so we checked out some of the local jade carvers. Interesting that the fish hook design, seen here, is the same as Hawaiian fishhooks.

The Kiwis have a whole different take on the possum than Americans (or at least Southerners). We saw these stores all over the place. Possum fur was a large selling point for locally produced clothing. From what we understand it is added to wool to make it softer. That is all well and good, but I couldn't find an American who could get around wearing roadkill.

Being sparsely populated and mountainous, the roads in New Zealand could be a bit confining. Seems the level of play elevated throughout the trip especially as we got deeper into the mountains. Throw the un-American stuff in there like driving on the left and roundabouts and then add narrow roads, then single lane roads and bridges and it was interesting, but the Kiwis are courteous folks and roads have few cars so it wasn't a problem. It was only fitting that on our last day of driving we came across a single lane bridge with a train track down the middle. No signage to indicate what to do about meeting a train, although I know who I was giving right of way to.