On Thursday morning we left Nelson in The Orca and started our journey down the west coast. I call our rental car The Orca after Quint's boat in Jaws, as when we picked the car up and tried to put our backpacks in, I said, "We're going to need a bigger boot".
We've had great weather so far in New Zealand, better than we expected. The West Coast of the South Island, however, is notoriously wet, getting much more rain per year than the East Coast over the mountains. Something to do with winds from the Antarctic being stopped by the mountains I gather. Sure enough, it was soon raining on us. Quite heavily.
The rain cleared for our first stop. Anne had spied "New Zealand's longest swingbridge" on our route at Buller Gorge, so we pulled over and paid $5 to cross it and do a short walk. A "swingbridge" is a bridge like the one at the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It was a pleasant diversion, but $5 was a bit much to ask. It's well placed for the long drive between Nelson and Greymouth (our destination) as it's about halfway and people will be up for a break.
Nearer Greymouth we stopped off at the coast to see some rocks. They're called Pancake Rocks as they look (a bit) like a stack of pancakes. Again, nothing amazing, but nice enough, and the rough sea was pretty spectacular. The West Coast scenery seems to be rugged rather than pretty. Given that we aim to be on a glacier at the weekend we can hardly complain if it's not sunny and hot!
Greymouth lived up to its name. There's not much I can say about it. Tourists come here to pass through rather than stay. You can get trains or buses from Christchurch here, and it's a convenient stop-over for journeys down the coast.
Thankfully the hostel we're in is worth writing home about. It's called "Noah's Ark" and each room has an animal theme. We're in the Leopard Room. The curtains and quilt has a leopardskin pattern, there's a leopard wall frieze, a painting of a leopard on the wall and there are model leopards around. We've looked in other rooms such as the Pig Room, Sheep Room, Bear Room and Puppy Room. The Cow Room looks to be the best.
We went to a local pub for a $3 all you can eat BBQ last night. (Basically sausages and salad.) We washed that down with a pitcher of beer, and then were drinking beer again today BEFORE LUNCH! Get us! We went on a brewery tour, which was interesting, and that ended with the chance to taste each of the beers they brew there. Before lunch we'd had about two pints each. Hic!
So Greymouth nothing special but we've done good things here.