Canucks → Kiwis: Shantytown

We had to hit up the local tourist attraction Shantytown - basically like Heritage Park in Calgary, if it had a gold mining theme. Since it's the off season the place was pretty dead, but it's a neat place to spend a nice day and learn a bit about gold mining. We even got to try panning for gold! I won't be changing professions anytime soon....it's is very tedious. Although we came away with some gold (guaranteed with every try...) it wasn't enough to cover our trip expenses, darn.

One of my favourite parts was getting to ride in the engine of the steam locomotive (a perk that comes when you are the only people on the train). It was also fun chatting with the driver (a real engineer!) and the gold panning guy, hearing a bit about some history of the area.