Hokitika and Shantytown

Hokitika

We drove our van into the Shining Star campsite late afternoon on the 27th of March. Apparently, we weren’t the first Riverside Drive Marina residents to check in here. Only a couple of weeks before, our sailing friend Jeanne Socrates also checked in at the Shining Star in her campervan. It’s a small world for a sailor and quite possibly a resident of New Zealand, where people actually talk to each other.

Established in the 1860s during New Zealand’s West Coast Gold Rush, Hokitika has retained much of its historical character. It previously served as a hub for thousands of people with picks, shovels, and pans seeking their fortune from gold. Today, there are a few bars serving beer, but the town retains its character from the old days. And it has some great restaurants.

Across the road from the campsite is the Gloworm Dell. We couldn’t photograph it. Well, we could, but you’d be looking at a photo of a black rectangle. This place makes the glowworm caves we visited previously look sparsely populated.

 

Shantytown

It’s a weird old place this.

Shantytown was conceived in the 1960s as a means to preserve the historical heritage of New Zealand’s West Coast. The aim was to create a replica of a 19th-century pioneer town, capturing the essence of the period and ensuring that the stories of those early days would not be lost to time.

There are around 30 buildings here, including a blacksmith’s forge, a schoolhouse, a church, a bank, a bar, hotels, and various shops typical of the gold rush era.

Of course, the real reason we were here was to step back in time, not to the gold rush era, but to our childhoods. The entrance fee grants you a return trip on a vintage train that rumbles its way through the forest. And if you like, on the way back, you can pan for gold. We didn’t – it was freezing.

This was totally unexpected. I have no idea where the exhibits came from in the Rewa Hospital. It could have been from the Royal Alexander Hospital, but who knows? I do remember reading about these things as a kid and being terrified at the prospect of getting polio and being imprisoned in one of these things.

Volunteers and railway enthusiasts support the steam train’s operation and maintenance. These individuals give away countless hours of their time to preserve and run the trains.

After another night at the Shining Star campsite and another visit to a restaurant in Hokitika, it was time to wear even warmer clothes and head further south into Glacier Country.