The Hill begins at the Top - Part One

摘要

Blackball is located 22 kilometres from Greymouth. The settlement is nestled on a plateau with the Paparoa Range as a back drop and today is largely a tourist town. Visitors can walk to the first Blackball mine's ventilation chimneys, enjoy a game of tennis, bowls, pan for gold, and hunt possums at night. Blackball was founded in 1864 by gold miners, although the really big gold field in the area was a little further up the Grey Valley at Moonlight. Thirty years later the interest was in coal and it was from these coal miners that the New Zealand Labour Party evolved. For nine years the employers and the Arbitration Court had refused to lengthen the coalminers' crib time (lunch break) from 15 minutes to half an hour.