If you love green jewels, riding an old steam train and rocks that make your pancakes look small

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Saturday, 13th April - Day Ten: Franz Josef to Westport 281km (169 miles) continuing up Hwy 6 along the Tasman Sea coastline where vast and muddy deltas head out to the Tasman Sea, past Hokitika, the “Jade Capital of the World” and a delightful tourist town with Opossum and Pauna shops (known elsewhere as abalone shell). This is also dairy country where a high percentage of dried milk product goes to China.

Shantytown Heritage Park

Howard and I were the only couple to stop at Shantytown, where we had a delightful short rail trip on an old 1887 steam train, which used to serve one of the old sawmills during the gold mining era.

More rivers, creeks, narrow bridges and several scenic reserves, a few town with wide streets.

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Photos

Hokitika near the sea
in the morning

The Possum People shop
soft garments made from brush tailed possum and merino wool

a bird in the bush
created in the Jade Factory from metals

can you find the bird?
a display at the Jade Factory

beautiful greenstone objects
this jade found only in New Zealand

Shantytown
just 4km further on

a very large water wheel
this is a Stamp Battery run by the water wheel that is used to crush gold-bearing rock

coal fired steam engine
hop a ride on a genuine 1887 steam engine

1877 Bristol steam engine
made in England

our train engineer
driver and also coal stoker talking to Howard

one of the huge logs in the sawmill
this is a typical bush sawmill that could cut through huge old red beech trees for the gold mines

the only female gold miner
this is a fascinating story of this intrepid small woman

Map of Shantytown
old fashioned sweets, King Dick's Cafe, fire-station, bank, printers and many more buildings from the late 1800's