Story: West Coast region
In June 1883 John Menzies set off with his wife Frances and one of their daughters, on a holiday trip to the West Coast. Leaving their farm near Pigeon Bay on Banks Peninsula, they went by boat to Lyttelton, then by train and coach over Arthur’s Pass to the West Coast. They travelled through the central part of the West Coast by coach, with sections on a luggage tram, a punt, boats and in a canoe. Their journey continued on to Nelson and Picton by road, then to Wellington and Lyttelton by sea.
It was an adventurous trip over three weeks. The drawings were done by John Menzies and the diary, written by his daughter, gives her impressions as one of the earliest tourists to the West Coast.
Source: Mary Menzies, A West Coast holiday in the 1880s. Wellington: Menzies Family History Group, 2003
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Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
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