A short morning run in the town saw that the tourist coaches were all departing from the hotels by 8am so no holiday lie-ins for all those pensioners. We departed by 9am and had a leisurely drive north passing part lots of beautiful lakes and scenic areas but resisted stopping at every view point. No wedding photo shoots either! We stopped at a town called Ross which was an old mining settlement, there was a heritage walk to the old gold mines and apparently there is still gold here. So we hired a shovel and pan and went off up the river looking for our fortune. Of course we wasted far to much time panning for gold but it was quite exciting especially when we kept finding little gold pieces. We returned with our treasure only to be told it was fool's gold but I am still going to bring it home!
We stopped at the seaside town of Hokitika which was an old gold mining town but now is mainly full of jade shops. It was all very quiet but we found some free wi fi so Graham could keep himself amused with some geocaches and I wandered along the beach still amazed by the driftwood that covers the beaches on the whole of the west coast. A local shop was selling wonderful arty pieces of polished driftwood and stones but apart from the odd person collecting it for firewood, the lovely driftwood clutters the beaches. We stopped the night at Greymouth, the largest town on the west coast. It is quite industrial but does have a brewery. We were tempted to do the brewery tour but it was too far to walk to the campsite so opted to buy some local brew in the supermarket to drink chez campervan. It was quite nice to camp by the beach as we could see the sunset and played around with the driftwood to take creative sunset photos. Campervan is now getting cluttered with arty bits if driftwood. How much wood can I bring home in my case?