Wildside- Honey, mead and great company!!

Trip Start Feb 11, 2008
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Trip End Jun 30, 2008


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Wednesday, May 7, 2008

We drove on through Greymouth and headed to the tiny little town of Harihari where we had been told that we should stay at a backpackers called "Wildside" by a couple from Spain and Venezuela who'd stayed there. They said that it was the most bizaare backpackers they'd ever stayed in, with antiques,collectibles and furtniture from the 1950's. We were to discover that it was sooo muych more than that. As the weather had turned nasty after we left Greynouth we thought that a couple of days to "down packs" and relax in front of a log fire, drink copious amunts of tea and get out of the crappy weather. Wildside is owned by Dan and Cathy and their lovely little daughter called Shea who is just at that crawing and into everything stage! Their place is amazing; the main backpackers is a 3 bedroomed house built in the 1930's and is furnished exactly like my grandmothers house with old furniture, collections of nick-nacks, old teapots and is just fabulous! The backpackers sits on Dan and Cathys home where they have built an adorable lodge, Dan's wood working shed, their honey processing shed (where they also make their mead- knock your head off stuff) and a veggi patch. Dan also does a bit of blacksmithing and recycles everything he can lay his hands on from the local dump! We were also treated to an evening in Dan and Cathy's "hot tub", an old enamelled bath around which Dan had built a stone fireplace complete with cast iron chimney so a fire can be lit underneath, thus providing you with HOT water, cooled down by the use of a hose so you can adjust your desired temperature. We sat in this bath under the starts for over an hour, watching the moon rise behind the apple trees in the orchard, soaking away the aches of sitting in Tilly for hours on end. They are superb people and we had such a lovely stay we were there for 3 days! Thanks a million guys!!
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