Revingtons Hotel Greymouth

... 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.

We have arrived on the West Coast - up in Greymouth. We came over Arthur's Pass which was pretty spectacular. We did stay one night in the little village of Arthur's Pass (pop. 25) which was surprisingly noisy as the train line goes right through the pass. I guess the railway is a quick way to get freight from the East to the West as the trains were going all night!! We were ...

... a fancy dress party... they have it all set up: boxes and boxes of clothes from which we will pick an outfit. Our theme: girls as boys and boys as girls... the boys love it! I don't know what it is with men dressing as women but they do have fun!! :o)) The next morning I sign up for the bone carving. We will be making a necklace from a piece of cow bone. It takes about 3h. I chose a Maori shape I like. I really have no clue what I am doing and my ...

Saturday 7th Today is the first day of our NZ adventure proper. We are awoken even earlier than yesterday by bagpipes which seem to be right outside the hostel window. Rising lazily, and wondering if my hangovers are beginning to stretch to two days, we pack and get all our stuff together as today is the day we pick up our long awaited wicked van. We walk to the depot and get lost on the way, but once there we go through all the motions of getting the van sorted ...

... plekjes. Ingepakt en richting Franz Josef gegaan. Onderweg gestopt in Hokitika en bij een iSight (het VVV van hier) een gletcher tour geboekt. Een medewerkster van het iSight raadde ons aan om de Franz Josef Glacier tour te doen en niet de Fox Glacier aangezien die meer gericht is op families. De FJ Glacier zou uitdagender zijn. We hebben wel besloten dat we nog op eigen gelegenheid naar de voet van de Fox Glacier gaan, verder kan/mag je op eigen houtje niet namelijk.

... to stay in a Homestay - which is a bit like a B&B but you stay in the family home and are often able to eat with the owners, which is what we did. Alison the owner, met us at the station as the house was bout 3 km away. We had a splendid room en suite, with TV, tea and coffee facilities and a patio door to a deck overlooking the Tasman Sea. They had a lovely garden with lots of these ferns, which is used ...

... werden koennen. Aber als das Wetter dann am naechsten Tag soo grossartig war, hab ich beschlossen da trotzdem hin zu fahren. Der mann vom DOC war allerdings wenig hilfreich. Genau wie bei der Arbeit, wenn mal jemand was fragt: jaa, DAS kann ich von hier aus natuerlich nicht sooo genau sagen, aber mit dem Regen, hmmm, jaaa. also is natuerlich deine Entscheidung, ob du gehen willst, aber ich wuerds nicht machen. Aber musst du selbst wissen. Danke, vielleicht weiss ...

... hit our first stop. At this point everyone had breakfast and the next leg was much quieter as they all slept off breakfast and a few hangovers I suspect! It was lashing it down ... A really cold and miserable day. We were supposed to make a couple of stops for photos etc but after the first stop to head down to a seal colony where everyone came back looking miserable and soaked, our bus driver suggested that we didn't stop again until we got to the Pancake Rocks ...

I woke up on the 11th not really feeling any different and the lack of mirror meant that I couldn't see if I looked any different but I was definitely a year older. We were up and away early at 8am and drove 200km to Punakaiki for some very special rocks - no they don't sparkle and aren't set in a ring but were some pretty amazing rock formations which were best viewed at high tide. High tide was at 5pm so we walked along the beach first, the ...