Thursday 24th March - Greymouth

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We are on the road early again, away by 08:00
We are initially on a secondary road that is a bit winding. As we get through Waiau we pick-up the highway 7 that will take us through the Lewis Pass.
We pass mountains shrouded in clouds. Although there are some winding mountain roads, a good deal of the roads is straight, and passes through the forest. It is a lot less daunting than I had imagined.
At one point we were held up by hundreds of sheep that were being herded down the main road. The roads a very quiet and we see very little traffic.
We stopped for lunch at Springs Junction, which is about halfway across the island. We are both starving as we set off without breakfast.

We arrive at the campsite in Greymouth after about a 6 hour drive. The sun is shining again so we sit outside drinking wine, reading and sunbathing. We have been really lucky with the weather so far, but I think that our luck is about to run out with rain forecast for most of New Zealand for the next 2-3 days.

The campsite is a bit out of town so we will eat in this evening. We called at the supermarket on the way to the site and picked up a cooked chicken and had Chicken Salad for dinner.

The campsite is next to the beach and we can hear the waves crashing. The beach is not very picturesque. It is made up of grey pebbles and sand, with lots of driftwood on the beach. But if you look down the coast you can see the snow covered mountains of the Southern Alps

We are off the Franz Josef tomorrow. I am hoping to get a helicopter ride over both Franz Josef and Fox glaziers and also Mt Cooke – but a lot will depend on the weather!

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