Up the west coast - Greymouth to Nelson

---

Wednesday 22/06/11
Greymouth to Nelson

11.30am in Greymouth
After the 'pack up' process again this morning (I'm a bit over having to pack up every morning) and booking a taxi to get me to my bus on time this arvo (1pm) and storing my luggage I head off to McDonalds (again!) for brekky. Cheap as - NZ$5.20 for a hot cakes meal including coffee. That's equivalent to about AUS$3.80!! Nice.

Well, it turns out to be a bit grey in Greymouth this morning! It's about 7 degrees celcius and rain, rain & more rain! Makes it a bit difficult to get around so I have no alternative but to go shopping!!! Haha. When I travel I don't tend to buy the touristy souvenirs as I find that when I get home I never look at them again, so I try and get something that I will use and that will have some meaning. - so I went to a jewellery shop! They sell Pandora stuff so I asked the assistant to show me some beads that are a bit 'New Zealandy' so that it will remind me of my trip. I only had a choice of about three as Pandora don't make country specific beads, so I chose one that looked similar to a Maori carving or tattoo (I thought that a bead was cheaper than getting another tattoo!). I'm really happy with it though.

After that I tried to go for a walk down to the river (Grey River) but turned around as I got pretty drenched and considering that i have to sit in a bus for 5 hours in my wet clothes I decided to go to a coffee shop called Maggies Kitchen in the main street to try and stay dry and have a hot chocolate while I write this blog. This afternoon I'm heading off to Nelson (top of the south island) by bus. I expect that we will be going up the coast which will be awesome to see, despite the weather I hope 😊

Added note: after visiting the jewellery shop, I found a gallery that sold 'Evolve' charms which are similar to pandora but are exclusively New Zealand designs - bugger! So I had to buy another one 😊 An anchor - which means safe travels in Maori. They had so many to choose from but couldn't afford to get them all 😞
12.45pm I got to the bus depot and boarded my first (of 3) buses. It was a mini bus actually, not overly comfortable but hey it was cheap! The bus driver was Brian and he was a very friendly chap. There's were only 5 of us on the bus so I was happy to have a double seat to myself....otherwise it would have been a bit squishy!! Brian had been driving buses for 28 years throughout NZ so I felt I was in capable hands. That was until we hit 100kms going around a corner!! OMG! He was a maniac! My life was in his hands! He hit that pedal and we didn't stop. The scenery was amazing again...well, I think it was cos it went by pretty quickly! Nah, I did see a bit despite our speed & the rain. We were heading up the west coast of the south island of NZ where the Tasman sea hits the coast with a force.

Gorgeous even in the wild weather. Most of this trip was alongside the coast driving along a road with cliffs on either side of us - one up, and one down! Aaahhhhhh! So I shut my eyes and pretended that I was somewhere else...anywhere else! We eventually arrived in Nelson just before 7pm so I got some dinner, called a taxi and headed off to the Tasman Bay Backpackers where I was welcomed warmly with free chocolate pudding & ice-cream...that's my idea of a welcome! The host was lovely and really went all out to make me feel comfortable. The place was really funky and best of all, it was clean. After pudding and a bit of facebooking, I hit the sack, watched some Hawaii 5-0 and went to sleep! Traveling is tiring! Night night 😊

---