With our business activities attended to we have the next few days of free time, which of course started out by sleeping in… again. No hurry was the agenda for the today as we headed toward Arrowtown. We love this little town; the company theme evening was held here on our first visit to New Zealand, the whole town turned out for that theme evening over 10 year ago and it was a night to remember.
Next to our parking spot at the edge of town sat an unassuming house that featured gold panning, food, and a gift shop. We walked around the shop and upon exiting noted the gold panning demonstration going on. We watched as gold flakes appeared in the bottom of pans and we were hooked. Nineteen dollars later and we were the proud owners of our own gold pan and heading toward the river. A few hours later we were none the richer and I was covered in black fly bites in spite of having sprayed head to toe. We decided to take a break and eat lunch.
Panning for Gold!
We wandered the shops and ate lunch at an Italian place; Linda having pizza and I had gluten free pasta bolognaise… plus a slice of Linda’s pizza. Walking past the gold panning shop heading back to the river we complained that “our” gold pan was broken, laughing he agreed to show us another demonstration. We decided we were panning correctly, just not having any luck. Back to the hotel, none the richer and probably not that much wiser.