Having not qualified for the doubles knockout, and then losing to Aiken & Harps in the first round of the knockout plate, I was fortunate to have James Abernathy take me on a tourist drive of Wanganui.
Overloking Wanganui towards croquet lawns
Wanganui is a town of 45,000 people which does not have a major industry and therefore is a welfare town with a large population of retirees and also a younger families. Wanganui has one of the hottest ratios of schools per head of population in New Zealand.
James took it to one of the only two operational lifts within a hill in the world. We had to walk 500 metres in a tunnel to the middle of the hill before taking the lift. At the top of the hill one has a fantastic view over the township of Wanganui.
Tunnel into hill
Of course one has to visit the beach when travelling in the middle of summer. The beaches on the west coast of New Zealand are a little different to what of experienced in most places around the world. There are no golden sands or gentle waves lapping the shoreline.
Tree lined Wanganui Beach
Instead one is greeted with black sand and plenty of timber as far as the eye can see. Being on the west coast of New Zealand the seas are quite rough, and whilst there is plenty of opportunity to get a good catch the treacherous seas turned plenty of fishermen away.
