weekend at Lake Brunner

Last weekend I spent at Lake Brunner, on the west coast of the South Island. My Rotary host counselor Valda, and her husband Rex own a bach (cottage) in Moana, the small community on the shore of Lake Brunner. We had a really relaxing weekend- on Saturday we went out of their boat and I water skiied a bit but it was freezing! I was wearing a 3mm wet suit but it the water was a mere 52F (11C) and my hands were numb after about 20min. We did a bit of fishing and caught 3 brown trout!

The west coast is well known for its mining and fishing- a lot of coal and gold mining went on there in the mid-late 1800s. The Brunner coal mine (pic below) is an old mine that is not a heritage site- a lot of the old machinery is still there. We also went to Nelson Lakes gold area- they used huge water cannon to cut out deep trenches in the hillside and then washed the gold out with water and filtered it. There are countless of these deep crevases in the hillside, some of which were also dug by hand using rock picks.

On Sunday (in the rain) we drove north to the Punakaiki blow holes and even though the weather wasn't great, we were there just at high tide so it was pretty impressive!

Enjoy the pictures...

cheers-
s.

Punakaiki Blowholes

Water Cannon for gold mining- Nelson Lakes area

Brunner coal mine

me and my somewhat slimey brown trout!

Water skiing on Lake Brunner--there was actually snow on the mountains around the lake and I could see my breath...insane.