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Published: March 2nd 2011
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Morning !
So I thought it was about time to tell you who I am travelling with. I should really have done that at the start to be honest haha. Toby is my mate's Nick's brother and he has done some travelling before in Thailand. I have known Toby for a good few years and he is a bit younger than me but is fearless when it comes to talking about bungee jumps. We'll get to that in a later post, we're supposed to be doing that on Friday 4th march, we'll see. I am bricking it.
Today we went from nelson to Greymouth. The scenery was pretty amazing and this seems to be coming to be the norm for travelling in the South Island. We got on the Magic Bus and our first stop was at Nelson Lakes National Park. This is not on the magic bus route officially, but I can't see why it isn't/ The views there were great. The southern alps reflecting back to you from the water. Swans and ducks at the edge of the water all coming up to be fed.
Steve our Magic Bus driver told us how the ducks were
really tame and how he had seen someone pick one up. I was not too keen on this, one I don't really like birds and I am not sure a duck that is in this wilderness could ever be tame. 10 minutes later a lady came up to us with a duck in her hands. I don't know, but it didn't sit right with me. She put it back and it waddled off, obviously in a bit of distress. Anyway...
We carried on following the winding road around coast, with Steve regaling stories of how there have been floods in recent months and how big landslides have cut off parts of the road, the biggest being back in 1999. As we drove round the corner, he showed us where the road used to be and how the landslide had taken the bit of road with it. He went on to explain how the army had to be drafted in to use explosives to unblock the river, as the landslide had caused the Buller river to dam and a big lake formed. People down in the coastal down of Westport were really worried about getting flooded, but it was all
good.
It made me think that New Zealand is all about extremes, extreme weather, extreme geology and extreme adventure. This place really isn't for the faint hearted.
We then carried on and started getting into gold mining territory. Gold mining was big business back in these parts during the 19th Century and there were hotels servicing tens of thousands of people in it's hey day. These are all but gones now, and remnants of the towns and cities can be seen travelling along the west coast.
We then made a stop at Cape Foulwind, named by Captain Cook, due to the horrible wind (no not that kind) that he experienced there while sailing in these parts. We got off the bus and hopped round to see a fur seal colony. At first they were very hard to see as they blended in with the rocks nicely, but eventually we could see pups and their families playing in the water and calling out to each other. We then carried round to another stop to look at the pancake rocks. These are quite a unique geological phenomenon - they are rocks that looks like they have been placed on
top of each other, stacking them really high, i.e. like pancakes. But it is all due to the battering wind and waves that have carved the rock this way. Quite impressive to see.
After this we carried on round to Greymouth for a nights stay that evening. Steve told us that there really is not that much to do in Greymouth apart from the Montieth's brewery tour. So that is what we did. It was pretty good, but no one there could kid each other - we all knew what we were there for - the free beer at the end. The tour, plus a $15 meal voucher was $30, and the food at the Railway pub round the corner was pretty good. I had fish and chips, it was pretty decent.
We then got an early night, as the trip to Franz Josef and what we would do there would prove to be a big day...
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