On the West Coast of the South Island are a host of old gold mines. Among them is Mitchell's mine, a 4 th generation owner who still dabbles at gold but has another job too and is making the old mine available for visitors to see what it was like. The old stamper battery:

The tunnels were mostly dug by one or two man teams who held the claim.

The 'Bush' comes right down to the side of the road. 5 metres in and you wouldn't know a road existed!

You might come across one of the 260 glaciers that meander down from the Southern Alps. This one is the Fox Glacier and you can get an idea of scale if you can see the group of people circled.

We hired it out of Christchurch, Lucy, it was May , a year back. We were on the road for 10 days and I'd still like to go back for another look. The West Coast was inhabited by prospectors who had come from Australia, the Klondyke and California,  Scotland and a hundred other origins. Some went broke some made millions but the one's who stayed evolved into friendly, if somewhat taciturn, hard men and women. Anywhere on the coast you get service but never servility. On our lounge wall we have a big framed print of the Cardrona Pub, where the stage coaches used to stop on the way to the goldfields. It includes some artistic licence, but to me it personifies the West Coast attitude. If you look closely you can see the drovers having a beer and his dog at the doorway .

It would indeed Lucy! There's a train ride in the offing for Jack. We don't get that much opportunity for trains ever since the the stupid “Rogernomics” (named after the labour minister of finance , Roger Douglas) sold off our railways to private enterprise in 1985, who promptly dropped every service that wasn't making a profit, as you would expect, so 6000 heavy trucks took to the roads causing more maintenance costs that the railways ever incurred. The govt have since bought it back but the damage is done.

However! After that tirade, there is a fun steam train travelling to the Dannevirke A & P show, and back .