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Published: August 9th 2007
Buller Gorge
Longest swingbridge in New Zealand (110m)The drive to Greymouth from Abel Tasman (Blog:
Abel Tasman / Marahau) took us via Buller Gorge. Buller Gorge apparently has New Zealand's longest swingbridge at 110m long. I had one look at it and decided there was no way I was going to cross it. Firstly, you could see straight through the bottom of it, down to the raging waters, secondly, it was really bouncing about as people walked along it (yes I know that's what swingbridges do, but this one was worse than most) and thirdly, you had to cross it both ways (as it was the only bridge across the gorge) and it was so narrow that if someone was coming the other way, you had to cling to one side. So, like a lemming to cliff edge, Jason just had to face his latest challenge. I decided to watch him cross it, despite his best efforts to persuade me to come across too. He started off quite confidently, but as more and more people got on the bridge, it began to bounce up and down and he looked a little unnerved. Then as he came to the middle, the worst place to pass someone, he met a bloke
coming the other way and looked very uneasy as he had to let go and cling to one side. The bloke had to clamber over him. I then went and sat in the car and had a snooze, as Jason did a walk on the other side of the gorge.
Punakaiki Our second planned stop enroute to Greymouth was Punakaiki, to see the famous pancake rocks. By the time we got here it was 4pm and the cloud was descending, bringing a little drizzle with it. After seeing all the rock formations along the Great Ocean Rock, I'm afraid we found the Pancake
Swingbridge
See through bottom, wouldn't get Sally on that in a million years!!! rocks rather boring in comparison. Maybe they look more impressive at high tide, when the sea funnels through the blowholes, but as high tide wasn't until 11pm that night, we decided not to wait around to see. We took a couple of photos for the record, but otherwise were not that impressed.
Greymouth and wonderful Global Village Backpackers There isn't a lot to get excited about in Greymouth, apart from a few activities (e.g. quad biking, gold panning etc.) that you could do just outside the town (which we arrived too late to do). As the cloud thickened, the place looked very grey. Basically Greymouth was just a place for us to stop the night to break up the journey from Abel Tasman to Franz Josef. We chose to stay at Global Village backpackers, which was a fantastic place. All the rooms had a different global theme, ours was Kenyan. The kitchen was big and had decent internet access. The owner even made us free chocolate muffins. It has great facilities - free bikes, kayaks, DVD's and an outdoor hot tub. Would thoroughly recommend a stay here. He adds a lot of colour to an otherwise grey town.
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