New Zealand 2005 (GSE) Tuesday, April 26, 2005 Greymouth, what a place! This town of just under 10,000 in population and is right on the Tasman Sea, surrounded by a beautiful line of mountain ranges. Unfortunately, about a month ago, a tornado came ripping through the city, sporadically taking off the roofs of some houses and businesses, overturning vehicles and snapping telephone poles right in half. I don't think the team has ever seen damage like this. We all settled in with our host families and then awoke on Tuesday morning as we were spending the day with Cedric and his son (and tour guide) Alistair. We took a city tour in and stopped at Cedric's work where he liasons and monitors the ships that come into the harbour. We then took off into the hills on a bit of a driving tour to some of Greymouth's surrounding areas. We stopped very briefly in a little town called 'Blackball' which had about 200 in population. You wouldn't believe it! They even had a 'formally Hilton' hotel, and of course we all took a picture. We stopped at the Brunner Mine Site and took a look through the old mines. This mine produced 12.6 million tonnes of coal during its 70 years of operation. In 1896 there was an underground explosion at the Brunner mine site. All 65 people underground at the time died in the tragedy. It remains New Zealand's worst mining disaster and suprisingly, the mine reopened and was productive until 1906 before being abandoned in 1940. After our tour, it was time for lunch! We arrived at the Nelson Creek Park for a tramp (hike) with Alistair while Cedric prepared our meal. Alistair, 15 years, is such an adventurous young fellow AND is a reporter in his school play! Way to go Alistair! The team and Alistair tramped along the mountain side near the park area for about 30min. Alistair is a brave soul and really wanted the team to slip into a few caves and holes along the way. The team graciously declined and went around meeting Alistair on the other side. Needless to say, we got our exercise! Not only did we get our exercise doing that, but also 'fox flying' (or zip trekking as we call in our district). All of us took a turn dragging this piece of rope and a board to sit on to the top while we jumped on and 'zipped' on through the air to the abrupt STOP of a bunch of tires. What a time, and we all got pictures. After all that exercise, we were in for a great meal and many thanks to Cedric for that AND Alistair for making FABULOUS Milos (a kiwi sort of malt/hot chocolate). We enjoyed a fabulous lunch nestled in the mountains.