Hokitat, Greymouth and Arthurs Pass

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People start packing up and leaving in the dorm at 6am, and by 7.30am I have the room to myself so I steal an extra half hour of undisturbed sleep. I have a nice morning, skype with dad, a full unpack and re-pack of my bag, and then cook some lunch for later. The bus leaves Franz Josef at 10am and heads to Hokitika. I have half an hour at Hokitika to look around before the bus heading to Greymouth. Being a bank holiday, Hoikitka is more like a ghost town, though I am told it is like this, bank holiday or not. I walked through the main town to the sea – and understand why people call the west coast of New Zealand wild and rouged – the waves were crashing in, but a few surfers were still out braving it.

At Greymouth I am exchanging bus for train as I head for apparently one of the world’s great scenic train trip. I already like this train, as I am required to check in, where they exchange my big backpack for a small green ticket – certainly A LOT easier to carry around with me!

With 30minutes I head for a quick wonder around Greymouth, through the town and back along the sea wall. Everybody says Greymouth is a dump, but it doesn’t seem too bad, but not much to see or so here, so I am glad I am not staying.

The train is rather plush, and very open and spacious which is nice. We zoom past Lake Brunner (named after Thomas Brunner – the first European to explore the West Coast of New Zealand, in 1848), and then through sub tropical rain forest, with the tracks running parallel with the Indo Australian and the Pacific plate boundary, which forms part of the Pacific ring of fire. Some information about the Southern Alps for you – its 450km North to South, and is a region which encompasses many large mountain ranges, the highest peak being Mount Cook (which I have already visited, at 3,754m) and there are sixteen other points that exceed 3,000 metres! The Alps came to be

The Southern Alps came to be due to the plate boundary, with the Pacific plate in the southeast pushing westward and colliding with the northward-moving Indo-Australian Plate to the northwest. Over the last 45 million years, the collision has pushed up a 20 km of rocks on the Pacific Plate…..forming the Alps. The Alps aren’t 20km high due to the constant erosion from the weather and rockfalls. Most of the tectonic movement is sideways rather than upwards, but the uplift still occurs at around 5-8mm/year, but with the erosion it means that there is no net growth in general.

The Southern Alps, like much on New Zealand is seeing the negative effects of climate change, with snow cover on the Southern Alps reducing by 40% since 1950.

Geography lesson complete, it is now time for the history lesson, as the train now heads into the Otira tunnel. Construction on the tunnel started in 1907 and it opened on 4 August 1923 and at the time of its construction it was one of the longest tunnels in the world. Built to transport gold from one side of the country to the other. The tunnel is 8.5km long and is a 1 in 33 gradient, making the Otira end of the tunnel 250 m lower than the Arthur's Pass end! Unfortunately being in a tunnel, I don’t get any views as we plough through the mountains, but the scenery is very picturesque when we arrive in Arthurs Pass.

Much like Fox Glacier, Arthurs Pass contains very little in terms of civilisation – with one café which contains a book shelf filled with groceries – and therefore doubles as the local store, one pub, and two hostels.

I put my things in the hostel, and go for a hot chocolate next door in the pub, as at 740m above sea level, light rain and winds blowing means it actually feels quite chilly here!

After sitting inside all day, I decide to don on the running gear and take the legs for a spin – it felt like very UK conditions with the light rain, wind and grey skies.

The hostel here is lovely, small and more like a mountain hut than a hostel – except, thank goodness we have showers here. In fact, not only do they have a nice hot shower, but in the main room (sitting room come dining room) contains a large roaring wood burning stove, heating the whole room. Everybody is gathered in here, and I spend the evening chatting away to a German guy, Danny from England, and another English man who lives in Christchurch. At 10pm a few of us decide to head to the ‘wobbly Kea’, the pub, but to our shock it closed at 9pm! After this I head to bed, rather excited about the fact I am the only one in my doom room tonight…roll on a full night’s sleep!

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