Blogs from West Coast, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 23

Our morning we Greymouth we woke up to crappy weather, which is apparently a commom thing on the west coast. We had a easy morning and drove around to some of the nearby towns that were susposed to be well known and famous. We still haven't decided why they were well know or famous! Once arriving back in Greymouth we decided to take a tour of the Monteiths Brewery. The tour of the brewery lasted 30 mins and the free beer part of the tour lasted 40 mins! We got to try all 7 types of beer and then they left us alone for 10 mins to drink our favorite beer! Crazy people leave us alone with free beer they should have know Dave won't follow the rules. Instead of using the short glasses for beer ... read more

Drove a long way today. Started by going up to the furthest north point - Fairwell Spit. Went back over the mountain and then went across to the West Coast. Decided to stay over in Greymouth where we got a motel again and watched England get bowled out for 110 in their latest debacle. Greymouth sits on the estuary of the river Grey as you could probably guess by the name. It's got one street of shops and bars but not much else.... read more

Barrytown, a paradise on the west coast but with a heard of sandflies which irritate the shit out of you. I've been on this backpaker Stray bus for a week now its good when there is a good group on the bus. We were lucky for Barrytown and we all dressed up in crap and had beers with the locals. My friend Mattias and I met some boar hunters and went shooting down the beach in their pick up truck and had a wicked bonfire. We had such a good nioght here we stayed on to do exactly the same thing the next night but with a different bus load!... read more

We woke up and went to look at the seal colony which was a short walk away from where we camped. Also took some touristy photos of sign with lots of different distances. You know you are a long way from home when London is the furthest at 16,296km away!!! Then we headed to Greymouth the weather turned pretty bad again. STopped at a few places on the way down. Then the rain started and just didnt stop. Car started to leak a little and we now have what we like to call a water feature!!!! Got to Franz Josef about 6pm. ... read more

If you like taking landscape photographs, Southwest New Zealand is where your camera comes to die. The scenery changes dramatically, and quickly. Trying to capture all of these tremendous and varying landscapes is definitely keeping our camera busy. We began our day in Wanaka, a quaint mountain town with a Muskoka cottage country sort of feel, and from there it took us four hours to get up to glacier country. The first hour we wound around on the hillsides that line Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea. The lakes and rolling hills, with the occasional small mountain made for some picturesque views. From there the road took us into Mount Aspiring National Park, where we drove the next hour-and-a-half. The mountainous scenery here was very stunning, and similar to a lot of what we saw in Fiordland ... read more