The Parish of South Westlands.

Our Lady of the Snows Franz Josef

















St James Anglican Church Franz Josef

















Fr Kevin Wei at Fox Glacier















The parish is big stretching from Ross in the north travelling through Harihari, Whataroa, Franz Josef , Fox Glacier to the village of Haast in the south a total of nearly 200miles. So my travelling between the Churches of Crowthorne and Sandhurst is not even a stone throw away in comparison. It puts everything in to perspective. It is a very hard life for the priest here because there are not many people live on this side of the South Island mainly due to the adverse weather and lack of working opportunities. Fr Kevin said that it is very rare for him to get a congregation over twenty.

The distances between the Mass centres makes daily mass out of the question and it curtails home visits as well. There are no homes, schools, hospitals, prisons or nursing homes to visit. Though you can pop into one of the parishioner’s for a cup of tea every so often there is a limit to how many times you can do this in a week when you have only six or seven families. So basically there is only the weekend Masses to organise. The rest of the week is your own, but when you are in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do it must be hard. I said to Fr Kevin Wei that I would have to work in the garden growing all my own veges and making the grounds look nice and when it was raining I would be decorating the inside of the house. (then repairing what I had done!). Fr Kevin spent a lot of his time making rosary beads and framing pictures.

I went to three of the Churches Our Lady of the Snows, Our Lady of the Woods, and Our Lady of the Lakes. (Very original I think I would have called the next two Our Lady of the Rain and Our Lady of the Bends) The Churches are very small and quaint except our Lady of the Woods which could hold about a 100 people at a push. This is a lovely wooden Church and very tastefully furnished, though over here in NZ they do have a tendency to have the sanctuary very high over the congregation which does tend to give the impression of us and them.

While I was here Fr Kevin took me around all the tourist stops the highlight being able to go right up to Fox Glacier and touching it and seeing how fast it is melting and receding. (Just like my hair) Walked back which took an hour and then the rains came down for the rest of the day. Went and had our sandwiches with a couple of parishioners then spent a pleasant evening watching Egg Heads and playing scrabble and would you believe it Fr Kevin beat me!!

The next day we went to Franz Josef Glacier which they wouldn’t let you get too near because of the danger of falling Ice. They had a lovely Anglican Church called St James This Church in Franz Josef had a big plain window at the back of the Altar and through this you could see the Franz Josef Glacier and the bridge over the river that flows from it. It was very impressive but I think it would be very distracting during Mass.(Yes I know what you are thinking!)Many couples come here to get married as it is so photogenic. My only quibble with it was everything was painted black, which did tend gave an oppressive feel to the Church.

Had lunch in the food hall in the village. The food here is not tip top and they do tend to eat a lot of rubbish, more so than we do in England and as for the coffee forget it. I take my Gold Blend with me as most homes have the very fine powder coffee that you get in Church functions. (Not may I add in the Catholic Parish of Crowthorne and Sandhurst). Then we went to the old Gold town of Okarito and its lake. It used to be a fairly big town in its hay day but now that has all gone with the gold, and there are only a few holiday homes there. Then off to see the grave yard in Whataroa. (You can see how exciting the day was) Then went home I cooked the meal this evening chatted and off to bed.( No scrabble this evening you don’t get a chance to beat me twice.)

On Friday morning we celebrated together the only week day Mass they have in South Westlands which begins at 9.30am. Four people came and they chatted and chatted, when it got to 10.00am I said don’t you think we should start the Mass now. I suppose that is country life, half hour here and a half hour there doesn’t matter, there is no rush. Said my good byes then back to Ashburton. It was a glorious day with bright blue sunny sky and this made the trip most enjoyable. It still took me five hours.

Note: If I was the bishop I wouldn’t leave a priest down there on his own. I would have him in the nearest big centre which is Hokitika. There he and another priest could work together and serve the people. This would give them and the parish a variety of options and could stop this appointment as it stands now being an ordeal. Then the priest wouldn’t necessary go round the bend, but only drive round it.

To Whataroa (pronounced ‘what a rower’) and the Church in South Westland

One of the many hills and bends on the West Coast

















The Church in Whataroa

To Whataroa (pronounced ‘what a rower’) and the Church in South Westland

Went to celebrate Mass in Methven and it rained and it rained. They have not had much rain here so they were very glad of it. The old adage is that if its raining on the Canterbury plains it will be sunshine on the West coast but not today it rains everywhere so I don’t have much of a view going through Arthur’s pass which you have to go through from the East coast to the West. At the other end of Arthur’s pass is a town called Greymouth. Though this town is named after a famous general it is aptly named because they get so much rain there, that it is nearly always grey in colour. Skipped through there as fast as I could and landed in Hokitika nice little town but wet so sped through there after receiving a cup of coffee in the local presbytery.

The West coast is so different from the flat Canterbury East coast. Here it is all hills and mountains and the scenery is very spectacular in parts. However, the mind soon gets a little bit bored with yet another luxuriant tree filled winding road up a hill and then down to yet another lake. Arnett said when they used to take the girls camping over here the girls would say, ‘not another lake.’ It is very luxuriant on this side of the South Island because of the amount of rain that falls here. Manchester is suffering from a drought compared to the amount of rain that falls here. The whole journey from Ashburton to Whataroa takes me over five hours of going up and down up and round and round. If you suffer from car sickness don’t go down this road!

Arrived at Whataroa still pouring with rain, I had to be careful not to miss the ‘town’ as it was only about 500 meters long and that is generous. The Church was a lovely old classic traditional wooden New Zealand Church as was the house. Though I rang the bell it wasn’t working so I just walked in. (They don’t have to lock the doors here and there is no neighbourhood watch) Fr Kevin Wei greeted me and said that the door bell had never worked and that they could never find what the fault was and anyway nobody ever rang it as they just walked in anyway. The house was typical New Zealand it wasn’t built for their climate. No double glazing cold and damp outside of the living room kitchen again nearly everything was a throwback to the fifties and sixties. The only concession to the modern world was a huge satellite dish and an ancient computer. Without the satellite dish you can only get one or two stations and if the weather is rough none at all. Yet for all that it was quaint and enjoyable and very, very quiet.

After a while the rain stopped so Fr Kevin took me to look around the town. It consisted of one shop that sold everything bar the kitchen sink. A garage, a small community centre, a small school, a pub and hotel, a farm implement shop, local Mari shop, a tourist information and booking kiosk, a motel and backpacker place, a fire and police station with one policeman and a car, and most curiosly a courthouse. Oh yes there were about 30-40 houses, four places of worship and a cemetery, Catholics on one side and all the others on the other side. (They were a bit shocked when I told them we all get mixed up together in England. You almost got the feeling that they would say, ‘We wouldn’t want that here’)

Whataroa would be typical of nearly all the little towns in South Westlands, except for the three main tourist centers France Josef, Foxes Glacier and the Haast, here there would be more hotels, eating places and tourists shops. So as you can tell the town was not what you would call big, and everyone knew everyone. People very rarely lock their doors, however, there would be no use in the parish centre as it was hanging off anyway. Though Fr Kevin did tell me that one day somebody did steal the church’s chalice but it eventually turned up in a Anglican church in the next ‘town’ a bit battered.