The Breakers Greymouth

Down south.
After my night in Wanganui I hit the road to Wellington, quite a long drive. On the way I picked up a hitchhiker - Brenda, a mature student from Otaki a little town en route, I mentioned that I was looking for an internet place and to show her appreciation for the lift she called home, picked up her library ticket and got me an hours free internet at the local library... Thank you Brenda.
I got into Wellington in the middle of the ...

... neben allen anderen Annehmlichkeiten auch noch einen Koch. Simon (der auch als Surflehrer arbeitet) kocht (fast) jeden Abend fuer 5AUS$ was leckeres - und heute werden wir besonders verwoehnt! Derzeit ist naemlich auch noch einer der fuehrenden Angel-Journalisten aus Australien zu Gast im Hostel und er hat fuers Abendessen 3 frisch gefangene Thunfische gefangen! Die werden uns jetzt BBQ-Style zubereitet und ich geniesse das beste Dinner meiner bisherigen Reise ...

... night, we did stay in our car but we could use the showers etc... and as it was her birthday the next day we decided to go for it. I had my first bath (with bubble bath provided!) for the first time in 5 months and got very excited!!! The hostel had free cakes and we thought we'd missed them but there were two left in the fridge so we had an early birthday cake!! We watched tv and went to bed with hot water bottles and the Fellowship of the Ring which we'd borrowed from the hostel.

... bus. For a change Rachel stayed up later while I had an early night. Next morning we were off early, this time headed further down the west coast of the South Island to the town of Greymouth. Once again we were only staying one night as we had heard there isn't a whole lot to do there either. During the drive down we stopped at a few scenic spots for pictures. One of the stops was the Pancake Rocks which ...

... Then, we loaded up the vans, and each of the 4 vans went it's own separate way. Our van just kind of took things as they came. We stopped at a random river near the coast and skipped rocks for about 30 minutes. Then, we passed a sign for Shantytown and decided to take that road and see what it was. Turns out it is a recreated historical village, but you have to pay $25 to enter, so we just took some pictures and moved onto a city called Hokitika ...

... Josh discovered what we initially thought was a kiwi in some of the bush by a river, much to our embarrassment later we found out it was a Weka (by this time we were telling other tourists about this amazing opportunity to see a real live Kiwi!). The ride on a small steam train (circa late 1800's) was a treat and the kids had great fun using a pan to find real gold (we only got a few ...

... erg indrukwekkend om zo'n complete sterrenhemel te zien. Na de cave nog een stuk op de rivier tot we terug waren bij de wagen. Als extratje konden we nog een "cliff-jump" doen. Iedereen heeft dat even gedaan en eenmaal terug bij het hoofdkantoor mochten we allemaal in het bubbelbad opwarmen... erg relaxed zo'n ding! 28-02: Greymouth -> Franz Josef: Weer lekker relaxed gedaan, even een hostel gereserveerd in Franz Josef, want vol is vol in deze ...

... the bacon and cheese croissants (went down very well after an early start!); at each station we stopped at for travellers to board/get off or to have fag breaks/stretch your legs, they got another load of food from the cafe on the station to replenish the train supplies!! The scenery was unbelievable - viaducts, rivers, lakes, mountains - very similar to Wales without the rain! We spent a lot of the journey ...

Punakaiki Another great stop along the way to the Abel Tasman area! We stopped for a quick half hour walk, took pictures and went to the bathroom. I will cut and paste what I googled on Punakaiki and the pancake rocks. If we were there at the right time, it would have been even better to see the blowholes, but it was still a ...

Antes de llegar a los glaciares hicimos parada, en principio por una noche, en uno de los guesthouse mas bonitos de todo el viaje... Era espectacular y nos quedamos un par de noches para disfrutar de la paz del lugar. Nos costaba como 25 euros pero tenia sauna, piscina termal,un monton de libros, chimenea y la cocina, llamarme maruja era super equipada. Habia utensilios que no tengo ni idea para que sirven, asi que Dee y yo decidimos hacer una buena comida y disfrutar de ...