We're still heading up the West Coast and today we arrived in Greymouth. Our morning stop was a place called Shantytown Heritage Park - a recreation of a gold mining town from the 1850s. We thought it was a bit like Beamish on a smaller scale! We rode on the restored steam train and got off at the sawmill, which was in full operation and had a display attached detailing the stories of the people who'd suffered nasty (often fatal) accidents in the saws - welcome to Shantytown!

Then we went to see the sluice gun demo - this was a way of getting gold out of rocks on the ground by spraying a jet of water onto them and filtering out the gold, which sinks to the bottom. You could also pan for gold, but it was an extra $5 and people didn't seem to be finding their fortunes so we didn't bother!

There were lots of old fashioned buildings to look in - a sweet shop and school room (like Beamish!), a butcher's shop, a hospital (where Dave scared some schoolgirls who thought he was a mannequin until he moved away from the display he was reading - their screams were pretty loud!), a carpenter's workshop, a freemasons' lodge, a jail…the list goes on! It was a really interesting place to spend a couple of hours, although the price was a bit steep at $30 each!

We then drove to Greymouth, parked up and went to the I-Site, where we booked our third brewery tour in as many months for tomorrow - this time at the Monteith's Brewery, where our favourite Radler beer comes from! They told us about a hostel nearby that also takes campervans so we drove there and claimed our spot!

Internet was free there and Laura took advantage of the bath (first one since Vegas!) with free bubble bath!

In the evening, we sat in the lounge and got talking to a few old guys who were staying there. One of them was called John Smith (!) and he told us about how he came over from Liverpool as a sailor and jumped ship in NZ. He married a Maori girl and he's been here ever since, although he still prefers football to rugby! He even bought us a beer from the bar in exchange for us listening to what seemed like his entire life story…a good night with some entertaining company!