Kingsgate Greymouth

... to the cliff face. Luckily it was traffic light controlled! <br><br>At the foot of the gorge and still reeling from the views we took a small detour into Westport for a late lunch. A nice quiet town that was largely&#8230; you guessed it, closed. I know it's a Bank Holiday weekend, but surely closing shops on a Saturday dinner was something we never did in the UK? All the time we keep getting passed by groups of motorcycles. It was nice to see them out ...

... Christchurch. It was good to share news of families and remember our experiences from the early 80's.<br><br>Tomorrow (Friday) we collect a camper van for the trip north to Wellington.<br><br>Click on any photo thumbnail on this page to view a larger image <br><br>The link below takes you to our calendar<br><br>http://www.google.com/c alendar/embed?src=mjhern%40gmail.com&am p;ctz=Australia/Adelaide<br>

Journal pour le 27 mars Le soir d'avalanche Peak nous avons couché à Greymouth, petite ville sur le bord de la mer de Tasman. Le lendemain nous avons tranquillement parcouru la côte entre Greymouth et Wesport. Route sinueuse, falaises déchirées, plages avec en bonus un beau soleil et une mer agitée. Un superbe tronçon de route. C'est aussi sur cette route qu'il y a les Punakaki Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. Formation géologique en couches et érodées par ...

... it's actually their bums that glow to attract their meals which get caught in their saliva hanging from the roof. Clever buggers eh? It just goes to show me that a schedule doesn't always work out for the best. I only had a vague idea of where I would go on this tour. I've already seen famous mountains, the cadbury chocolate factory, speights beer factory, canyon swing twice, met amazing people, saw huge glaciers, and now some glowing worms. And I'm not even done!

... stove and get back on the road to the west coast. It is raining hard and the grey sky seems very low. As we hit the coast the weather looks worse if possible and we drive south down the coast to Greymouth. As we round one bend in particular there is a spectacular rainbow across the road, which we can see both ends of. So, it being gold panning country we decide to go and look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. As it happens there is a stream ...

... first man out (always been **** at pool) and then some beers drunk as the bus driver tried to get us to hang on until the bar filled up and the disco was happening - i can safely say it just never seemed to happen walking back we got a bit lost and there was nearly an incident when we approached a car - the blokes inside were fine but the young kiwi girls were mad agresssive - we only wanted directions - as ...

... was paua shell) but its still really nice and shiny like paua, just not as blue/purple/green...just pinky white!!! and i also made a couple of beach creations, with the flat stones i made 3 stone stacks and then i collected tons of white pebbles and wrote a message in the sand for Andrew's birthday card (managed to make it into a moonpig card for him!) - hope he likes it when he opens it tomo!!! i then walked up the hill to pancake rocks! this was a really nice ...

... the process; and it didn't feel like a rush to the bar. This brewery does bottles and two types of kegs only, but they manage to produce 6 mainstream beers (original, golden, radler, black, celtic, and pilsner (pilsner not brewed here), two special seasonal beers (summer and winter), and the odd one off like the (possibly) soon to be released cherry and chocolate stout. At the end there was a chance to sample each of the beers, this time poured ...

so i am not sure exactly where i stayed this night.... it's kind of close to greymouth i guess...but i stayed at this random little hostel on the side of the road and there was absoultely nothing else there besides the hostel and the pub attached to it. since there is a lake nearby that ends with "poo" that no one can pronounce, the pub is called the "poo pub". That night we had a dress up night and the theme was ABC -- Anything But ...

... 11th September Today we found out that all our stones are worthless, but spoke to a really interesting Jade jewelry maker in an ex Gold mining town, Ross. Clare bought some offcuts for $5 to design some small pieces with when back in Blighty. We then continued to the township of Franz Josef and looked into the Glacier trips. Not much choice as 'Glacier Guides' have now bought out the ...