OMG

Oh my God, Oh my God.  That is the OMG kids text now adays.  Every day here Kadizzle cannot help saying it to himself, and even out loud.  So much of the scenery just blows your eyeballs back in your. Head.  Up the west coast Kadizzle went.  The owner of the bnb recommended a hike to a huge waterfall.  That did not work out. It really made no difference.  Something else Kadizzle wanted to see but did not was a modern strip mine on the top of the mountain.  So what did happen? Kadizzle saw signs on the road for home made pies.  How could you go wrong with a home made pie? Visions of various berry pies with ice cream danced in his head.  So little Joey was brimming with joy.  At the pie place it turned out New Zealand pies are all filled with meat.  Breakfast was a meat pie, and it was pretty good.  The pie lady was very nice and suggested Kadizzle go up the mountain to the historic mine.  The mine and the history of the mine were amazing.  Someone had the insane idea of lowering the coal down the mountain on the steepest inclined railway in the world.  This all started back in 1878 when a coal seam was found on top of the mountain.  Apparently they ran the place until the sixties.  May have to post a video about the place.  When you see what they did you just have to do an OMG.  With certainty Kadizzle can assure you there is no more scenic place to mine coal on Earth.  The coal mining town had a spectacular view of the ocean and mountains.  They also had some spectacular accidents.  It was extremely dangerous moving coal they way they did.  When one car went down it pulled the empty one up.  It was a complicated process because the incline went around a curve about halfway down.  People were not supposed to ride the cars because of the danger, but it was the only practical way to get up and down to the town.  Of course some cars got loose and the wrecks must have been very exciting.

Back down the mountain and another stop at the pie shop.  Some older fellow had a hat on that said ban 1018.  Kadizzle asked him what that was about and he explained they drop some sort of poisen from helicopters to kill certain animals.  Of course they end up killing things they never intended to. All over New Zealand you can see traps in the woods where they are trying to get rid of invasive species.  It is sort of working.  Well this chap and his old buddy invited Kadizzle to sit at their table.  It happen some young American software programmer was sitting there also .  We had an absolutely wonderful hour long conversation about the state of the world and of course politics.  The old fellow used the term Reaganised.  He talked about how New Zealand got Reaganised.  It is the same process the Republicans use to destroy our country.  Lower taxes on the rich and destroy unions.  You know the game.  The fellow was a journalist and he wrote a book about a local coal miner he used to talk with.  Kadizzle got the name of his book and it will be fun to find it and read it.

The pie lady suggested a trip down the road to a waterfall, but with some of the landslides it was just not going to work, so Kadizzle took a trip to another old mining camp.  Not much was left of the place, but the bathouse was unique by American standards.  The entire showers were cast like little caves in the side of the wall out of concrete.  Looked like each man got his own shower.  When old Kadizzle was a miner everyone showered in one giant room with a bunch of shower heads.  Did the laundry this morning, a great accomplishment.

The beauty and scenery of this country is never ending and it would take a long time to see it all.  Kadizzle has to burn up some more time and make go back to the Able Tasman park area.  May get brave enough to swim this time or may be able to bum a wet suit.  Meeting the people is half the fun.  As Kadizzle said before they have outlawed meaness.  At the pie shop had a nice conversation with a truck driver.  Driving a truck here is equivalent to doing surgery.  The roads are never straight, always narrow and it is just hard to see how these guys do it.  Not only do they do it, but they go pretty fast.  The trucks are different.  They have two steering axels in the front.  An American truck will have a crash with a car every ten minutes if you tried to go around a turn with the trailer length of a U.S. truck.  Kadizzle told the truck drive he saw no trucks with sleepers, but the trucker said he had on on his truck, which happened to be an American truck.  You see very few American trucks.  Almost every trip a drive does he can get back the same day.  Hearing the different terms for things in English is also interesting.  Trails, are tracks, hiking is tramping, and Kadizzle will have to check with Mrs. Shetland Island to recall her expression for saying 7:30.  OK, the fingers need a rest.  May post the mine video if I can find one.