Back in the day when they made voyages of discovery in the spirit of Vasco da Gama, no town was ever too small for the Lions. No matter how remote the location, they, like the 15th century Portuguese explorer, would find a way there. More often than not that would mean arriving at places they had never heard of like Taumarunui in New Zealand’s King Country and Westport on the west coast of the South Island.
A population of fewer than 5,000 makes each more a large village than a small town. Greymouth, only slightly larger, used to be another regular port of call. Nobody complained about the i...