On the Road

I wanted to show anyone interested what some small New Zealand towns are like. As a bonus, you can see our day at the beach when it rained.

We took the Kiwi Flyer to Rabbit Island near Kaiteriteri hoping for a day of water sports. Richard wanted to fish from his kayak, Mary Anne and I wanted a turn paddling, and we all were ready for a swim. The weather had other ideas.

We left the next morning bound for Reefton, which is in something of a rain shadow. This gave us hope for warmer, sunnier days. We stopped in Murchison for lunch.

Reefton, the first town in the southern hemisphere to get electricity.

A visit to the Tourist Office led to a trip through this “gold mine”.

The Thermette is a device used for heating water (as in, for tea). One builds a fire at the bottom and the hole in the middle acts as a flue. Water in the container is quickly heated. These were very popular with New Zealand troops during the Second World War.