Resting in Reefton

Wednesday 22 October

A lazy start to the day while we read up about things to do in & around Reefton and chatted to our POP hosts, Bob & Linda, and tried to make friends with Razz, their toy schnauzer who wasn't having a bar of it.

There weren’t any specific cycle tracks in the area but Bob suggested a road out to the Waitahu River so we got down the bikes and set off. Met an old hunter down at the bridge over the river with his dog Taz - he’d just walked out of the bush with a dead pig on his back and was waiting for a lift from his mate… Taz was obviously a good pig dog and had evidence of the kill on his bloody nose!

Checked out what we could see of the local coal mine (not a lot - but I did have all the minimum protection requirements from the sign - so long as you class hiking boots as "safety footwear"!) then cycled back to town along Gannons Road then onto SH69, past the old pioneer cemetery which was quite odd - all the remaining gravestones were clustered together in a long double row. There was a memorial plaque explaining that both the church records and many of the graves had been lost over the years so now the remaining gravestones were stacked alongside the church. Some of them were pretty fancy, and I think a few of the original ones had been replaced quite recently by the occupants' descendants.

After lunch in Banjo we popped into town to explore and check out what roast the pub would be serving for dinner… it has a good reputation for its roasts and we’d built up enough food budget capacity to eat out later!

Highlights of Reefton were the lovely art gallery, a couple of cool tea rooms and a gin distillery. Less impressive were the TJ shops selling absolute tat! The Reefton Distilling Co. was awesome - they had a free tasting which immediately resulted in a sale of a little bottle of Little Biddy gin to Louis; I meanwhile was loving the beautiful bottles which featured a pattern of rimu leaves, and the woman in charge was proud to tell us that the bottles had just won a marketing award for their design. It was also cool that the colours of the gins and their bottles matched the original stained glass windows along the front of the store! The other cool product that they sold was "Dog Beer" which was essentially bone broth in a beer can so man's best friend could enjoy a brewski alongside their owner!!!

Walked back to Banjo for a late siesta then back to the pub for a mystery roast of the day (the publican couldn’t/wouldn’t tell us earlier what it was!!!)

Had a lovely plate of beef roast with veggies and gravy but sadly no yorkies - I chose mini and Louis opted for medium but struggled to finish it! Great value for money!

Was amused to see that they had a full set of Good George gins behind the bar - including the recently released 2025 edition "The Fuckening" which commemorates the clusterfuck that is 2025! Their tag line is "This isn’t just a bottle of gin; it’s survival with a grin. When the headlines get grim, the group chats go feral, and reality feels stranger than fiction… you’ll be ready to toast to it anyway. Drink responsibly. Laugh irresponsibly."!!!

My closing pic of the day was the reception door at the Lantern Court Motel... how upsetting is the placement of that doormat? I had to put it right!