Never Listen to Over Zealous Dutch Travelers

So while in Karamea we met up with a young dutch couple spending months traveling around NZ. They seemed very knowledgeable and experienced and they said " Oh when you go to the glaciers you must stay at Gillespies Point" Oh ok we'll do that. WRONG. SO Gillespies POint is the end of a 30 min long dirt track. Usually these end in great spots..this ended in a parking lot full of other campers. Given it was nice that this two hut fishing village had been taken over by sheep... but we did not drive all that way to stay on a parking lot... SO off on a dirt track we go to find a quieter spot near the beach. In the bushes are ominous hand painted signed saying "Warning mining in progress" This is wierd as who mines on beach.. So we stop to set up camp and who arrives with in 5 minutes...the plague of this otherwise perfect land...Sandflies...Biting blood sucking make your limbs swell sandflies. Into the campervan we go for another long evening in a camper van made for actually one person of diminutive stature..... And in the morning....we are stuck...in the soft sand with sandflies... and who can get us out? A "miner" driving a small bulldozer ... mining for gold dust in the sand.....And the money of stupid foreigners campers....Yes this country does hold some interesting people ...mining for gold dust in the sand...zealous