Today was a long bus day, but the payoff at the end was a rugged coast line. Greymouth has the shore, and a history of coal mining, gold mining and timber production. We are here for the natural wonder of pancake rocks and a bush hike near a river.
So, some odds and ends. While we were at the vineyard, we kept hearing a boom sound, sort of like a gunshot. It was a robot amongst the vines. It moves around and randomly makes the gunshot noise to scare the birds. No actual guns, just a loud noise, it is the Ph.D. project of a nephew of the vineyard’s owner. Sounds like a good idea, and, fortunately, only necessary close to harvest when the fruit is ripening and sweet.
As we tramp through the bush, a common plant is the kawakawa. It is in the peppercorn family and the leaves are tasty: basil-ish with the numbing quality of cloves. The trick is to pick a leaf that has lots of holes. This means an insect (actually a larvae that is like an inchworm) has been there before you, to munch. A leaf that has lots of holes is the most palatable for humans. I’ve never willingly followed an insect in my snacking, but it works. I saw this plant today and it was pretty good:
In the cities, our hotels had breakfast buffets. Now that we are in smaller towns, we stay in motor lodges and have been eating breakfast in some very cool cafes. New Zealand has both a coffee and a tea culture– three cheers, because morning tea drinkers like me can really get minimal attention in the US. Here I’ve been served little pots of tea made with loose leaf and that’s been wonderful. Meanwhile, the coffee drinkers make a selection from lattes, tall blacks, Americanos, or flat whites. We all seem sufficiently perky to get the morning’s activities under way, no matter the choice.
When we left the cafe today, (Richard Harris, Greymouth) a small truck was leaving with the back full of a variety of milk bottles.
“Are you delivering the milk?” I asked.
“No, we’re taking it all to the pigs. It doesn’t go to waste that way.” the man answered.
The milk was past its expiration date, and the pig farm was going to put it to good use. New Zealand’s biggest export is dairy, and the cows are grass fed. Just look at all the flavors of milk the farmer was collecting:
Greymouth is on a major river, the Grey River is its English name and Māwheranuim is the Māori name. Where the river meets the Tasman sea there is some wicked water, but it also made a nice background:
