Our next stop was the DOC center in Haast. I had no idea what Karsten was talking about when he said that. I still have all that newspaper software stuff imprinted on my brain…I kept thinking libraries, since Doc Center is the Hermes archive software, apparently renamed recently to Media Asset Manager. Guess I still need this extended vacation!
No – the DOC center is the Department of Conservation’s Haast Visitor’s Center. And in Haast, it was quite architecturally impressive. It’s actually built into the wetland with decks on the front and back that put you right on the water. Inside was very well done too. While there was lots of history and information about the natural habitat, the best part was a photo exhibit by kids from the local school. The pictures were really, really good – showing what being in the NZ wilderness meant to them. You could look at old photos of a family’s homestead, read about their history helping build the region (to the extent that it is!), and at the end of the story you were told to look up and out the window at the current homestead – which I thought was kind of cool. There was also lots of info on whitebait fishing, which has become quite controversial lately. Whitebait are these little, wormy-like fish that are a delicacy here and just about at the end of the season. Karsten has a great story about eating too much of them once, so he’ll probably never eat them again – or at least not for a long time, but Malcolm told me they weren’t crunchy little fish (some of you know I have a problem eating whole mini fish if they are crunchy at all), so I decided I would eventually try them on the trip.
We watched a movie on the West Coast wilderness in the theater and by the time it was done, the rain had let up. Karsten told me it was my insisting that “optimism is a strategy” thing – Gail, you know what I’m talking about. So – I changed into bike clothes and we were off, riding to Ship Creek where we would be walking along the beach. Couldn’t forget the bug spray…thanks again, Catherine.
Karsten … more feedback in my notes at this point. Catherine mentioned the trailer was leaking at this point. You must have done a great job with that blue tarp, because my bags were never wet coming out of it, despite how much the trailer got rained on this week. She also mentioned that there was no chocolate and toffees this week, but if I recall, she made up for it later in the week when you dumped that Cadbury bar in with the healthy granola bars, oranges and bananas. I, personally, had plenty of food on the trip without the chocolate!