Thursday, November 14th - Day 66 - Westport - Coal and Maori Museum
As forecast, Cape Foulwind has lived up to its name today. Sometime overnight the rain started, accompanied by a strong blustery wind. It rained steadily all day and at times the wind drove the rain nearly horizontal.
Not surprisingly, then, this was a slow day for us. We worked a bit on emails and the blog during the morning, and read a bit as well. Deb made a huge salad for lunch and we had that with left-over seafood chowder (Deb) and lamb sausages that Munroe had picked up in Wanaka and that needed to be cooked.
Around 1:30 we drove to Westport to go to the old "Coaltown" museum, now renamed "Pounamu Pathway - Museum of Kawatiri" (Maori for Westport). The museum was quite well done - the Maori piece, outlining the arrival of settlers from Hawai'i at least 700 years ago, and their settlement along the west coast, was the first set of exhibits. They obviously had been grafted on to the much more detailed and extensive set of exhibits about "coaltown" - describing the coal mining and transportation industries of the 1870s - 1970s in great detail. There was no effort made to "connect" the two themes - they simply sat side-by-side in the museum. So, taken as a whole, the exhibits were a bit disjointed - but, in light of our experiences yesterday at the Denniston the coal exhibits were extremely interesting.
We sat through a couple of movies, one about coal in the area in general and one that specifically focused on the mines at Denniston. The exhibits included the massive brake drum that was recovered (the only one salvaged) from the Incline at Denniston and an actual coal car perched as if it were on the incline. The film of Denniston showed the Incline in operation, and it was striking how fast the entire system ran. The heavy coal cars really zipped by - one every 2 minutes. Before the track and then a road was put in, the only way to go up and down the mountain was by the Incline. Must have been a terrifying ride. Some people who went up to establish their lives at the top never went back down for 20 years!
At the museum shop Munroe loaded up on brochures, some for our next adventures in Nelson and the Marlborough Sound area (and the hot springs between Picton and Christchurch that we may well visit on our drive south next week). The others deal with places in New Zealand where we've already been, but that might be helpful to friends Anne and Bill Wadsworth as they plan their vacation down here next year. He also found a third novel by Jenny Pattrick, which continues the saga she began in "The Denniston Rose".
On the way back to Cape Foulwind, we stopped to get a couple of coffees and then settled in for our last night in this glorious part of the world. We're so grateful that we included the West Coast on our trip this time. It really is a very special part of New Zealand. Now, we look forward to heading to Nelson—the first 'return' visit to the places we toured in 2006, and one that holds a very special place in our hearts.