We packed up and headed into the downtown area of Greymouth. We dropped off the bags at the station and started a walk around the town. First we headed to the banks of the river. It is contained behind high banks and on the top of the levee there are informative placards listing the many floods and ship wrecks. We went to the Left Bank Art Gallery and museum. We were blown away by the amount of talent in this small town. The best piece in the gallery was a wall sized piece made of 100's of small cutouts from aluminum beer cans. They had some special pieces an an old bank vault in the building. Then we went Shades of jade where I fell in love with a pendant. It was made of Rau karaka pounamu. a type of greenstone named after the Karaka tree with green leaves and yellow/orange flowers. The pendant has all of these colors and it is bent a bit like I am. The owner told us about the bookstore in town and even recommended a book. So we were off to the bookstore where I bought the "Bone People". We met Wendy the owner and Paul who owned another shop in town. They were representing the intelligentsia of the town. Bohemians at heart, we really clicked with them. Paul told me that he had some downtime between jobs and took the opportunity to travel with a contemporary art collection to schools all over the South Island. He would say "I spy with my Art eye" games with the little ones and would challenge the bigger ones to pick a favorite piece. He would then ask them to articulate why this piece was their favorite in the same terms that an art critic would use, They recommended Blanches Bakery where we went for lunch and sandwiches to go on the train. We successfully whittled away the hours that we needed to whittle before the train arrived and we were able to board.
The Grey River
It is big and there is a large amount of water flowing out to he ocean
The letters for Greymouth were drawn at an angle so that when a camera is up at 1.5 meters up above the ground the letters appear to raise up from the ground
there were once 57 hotels in Greymouth but many are in decline
As statue for coalminers
The list of fatalities shows that 1896 was a bad year. An entire shift of miners perished in a methane explosion. 65 miners died in the Brunner mine near Greymouth
A very cool museum and gallery
The clock tower in town
A MASH themed coffee truck
Coffee Emergencies!!!
All tiny pieces of aluminum
A close up of the small pieces
Some great greenstone work
These were in the vault
Nice hair, dude!
Public art
An example of the waves at the mouth of the Greymouth river
My new piece getting re-strung to fit my big head
Wendy and Paul. Wendy saves all the bookmarks that come in with the used books
The jade of New Zealand
Genuine Possum Fir!
Who would have thought
Lots of tidbits of information about the town painted on the wall
A 7.8 magnitude quake is a serious earthquake
Fiendish!!!
One of many at the confluence of the Greymouth and the Tasman Sea
King Dick, did it mean the same thing in 1906
1896 was a bad year for the Brunner Mine
Yum!
Sandwich or disguise?
The word is out about Blanchy's and the people are here
Steak and cheese pie
