Thousands turn up to Hokitika wild food festival

A sellout crowd of 19,000 turned out for Hokitika's Wild Food Festival today.

A spokesman for the festival said it was a beautiful day and there were a lot of visitors in town who were in high spirits.

Amongst the new stalls at the show was a Chatham Island seagull stall and a cows udder stall.

According to the spokesman, the seagull was cooked in a nice marinade and tasted "like a small quail."

He said the standard stalls were very popular too.

"There's about half a dozen whitebait stalls that are going flat out."

Hokitika will benefit from the day with stalls injecting $2 million into the local community, he said.

There was a small delay in getting the day ready this morning as a lot of the setting up team had gone to nearby tornado ravaged Greymouth to help out .

The Festival is expected to finish at 5.30pm.

- NZPA