Pounamu Pathway & Exploring Greymouth

Thursday 30 October

After another wild night - and the bins being emptied behind us at 6.30am - we weren’t sure what to do. The sky out over the sea was quite blue and hopeful but inland it was pretty gloomy and the forecast was for more of the latter. So we hopped onto BookMe and picked up two tickets for the Pounamu Pathway experience for the price of one and whizzed into town for that, after our fix of Celebrity Traitors!

The Pounamu Pathway is an iwi led experience, supported by Weta Workshop, telling the story of pounamu (Māori jade or greenstone) which is only found in the waters of the Arahura River, running from the Southern Alps to the West Coast between Greymouth & Hokitika. It is a treasured taonga of Māori, for its strength and beauty. Used for tools, weapons and decoration, this beautiful stone has shaped Māori settlement in this area since their earliest arrival from Hawaiki and been the cause of wars between iwi and hapu and been subject to colonial land acquisition. The exhibition was incredibly powerful and fascinating.

Tūhuru, an 18th-century warrior chief of Poutini Ngāi Tahu who defended these lands, the source of pounamu was depicted at 3 times human scale and his story was narrated in one space. I loved the pepeha - a “pepeha” explains an individual’s “whakapapa”, their layers of connection to the land, the rivers, the sea, their home and their tribe. In one room , beautiful woven kete (baskets) provided the backdrops for projected stories about how pounamu was used - in this case it was about using it as an adornment in a necklace or bracelet. There was a large piece of pounamu at the exit doorway - Pounamu has a very tactile surface - once polished it is silky smooth and very enticing to touch. Māori believe it will absorb negative energy and transmit it away from the person who wears or touches it.

We paused in town for lunch at the Sevenpenny - named to commemorate an historic beer boycott when greedy publicans pushed up their prices from sixpence a pint to seven pennies! After several months of abstinence and lost profits the bars relented and brought the price back down! Louis went for the burger, and I had the Moroccan lamb salad which was filling and delicious.

I ducked into a local gallery that was hosting an emotionally charged exhibition about the Pike River Mine disaster and the movie that we’d seen in Westport. A tribute to the 29 miners who lost their lives at the Pike River Mine disaster and those who tried to help.

This moving photo showed Anna & Sonya, the two women on which the Pike River movie was based, watching Melanie Lynsky & Robin Malcolm, who played them in the film, at an early table read. It was shocking to learn what those women went through in their fight for justice. In a special side room where camera were prohibited there was a beautiful Māori cloak woven from feathers and materials from the miners - adorned with 29 yellow feather ribbons to honour each lost life - and the lining of the cloak was created from miners overalls. So moving.

Back at Banjo, the day seemed a lot brighter so we hopped on the bikes and cycled out along the river then the coastline on the West Coast Wilderness Trail down to Paroa, then back - arriving minutes before the heavens opened and tried to drown us again!

Stayed in for the rest of the evening as the rain refused to leave for the most part, and were astonished by a sudden golden glow as the sun cracked through the clouds for a final hurrah of a sunset - wow! 🧡