Mercheston. White water rafting was off - drought not beneficial to the white water part of it!So we strolled around the place which was a typical wild west style town from the late 1880's, with the original clapboard clad hotel at the cross roads and various other original buildings, a commercial stables (stalls for the horses and tiny rooms for travellers), theatre (with fancy wrought iron & leather clad seats sloping down to the stage) and Mike and Yola re enacting the gun fight at the OK corral in the main street!
This pic was taken in Hodgeson's general store.....fork handles springs to mind!
Super hot day again, so we hunted out a fantastic swimming hole, that turned out to be famous for its eels, but no sign of any, I suppose they're not impressed by the drought either!
Headed off in the afternoon sun towards Westport and camped up by the deep Buller Gorge with a fairly moderate presence of sand flies. I tried cooking a hot curry tonight to see if that might put them off at all, we think a slight improvement.... possibly!
Female Sandflies are bad news in an anticoagulant irritant, blood sucking and prolific kind of way. They are the curse of NZ and in particular the West Coast.
When putting up the tent this evening, Yola wore her jeans with socks tucked in, scarf around head, ears and nose, sunglasses and hoodie.....essential standard West Coast summer camping attire! We're expecting the style police to come and arrest or fine us most evenings!