Bluff
I spent the day relaxing, reading and washing all my clothes before visiting the maritime museum.
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| Royal visit in 1953 |
A very interesting museum with a lot of information about the local area as well as ship and boat displays.
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| Nice old 'colonial' house |
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| There are a lot of painted walls around Bluff |
Bluff developed around the harbour and oyster fisheries and is still a major port for the export of timber and container traffic.
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| Ocean Beach meat processing plant in its prime |
The present harbour area was constructed, starting in 1952, on a man made island which was built on a shallow area just off the coast. There is a big aluminum smelter on the other side of the inlet as well that uses electricity from the Manapouri power plant and bauxite imported from Australia to produce some of the best quality aluminum in the world and employs a large number of people although that is liable to close within the next ten years.
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| A Norwegian Praam dinghy in the museum |
The enormous Ocean Bay slaughter house and meat packing plant closed in 1991 with the loss of 1450 jobs, which obviously contributed in a big way to the decline of the town.
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| One of the steam engines from the tug 'Awarua' |
Oysters continue to be a big seasonal industry in the area. In
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| More timber for export |
There is fascinating artists shop/studio called Jimi Rabbitz which was never open when I was there but let contains a lot of papier mashe figures. I was told that the artist rarely opens the shop and she doesn't really like selling anything.
A good meal in the restaurant and I'm off to Stewart Island in the morning.
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