Our journey now took us across the north-eastern section of the South Island and down the West cost. This is the wettest, windiest part of the island and has sone dramatic coastal scenery.
First though we stopped at Buller Gorge to be ripped off paying to walk across New Zealand's longest swingbridge. Yeah it was long, but at the end of the day it's just a swingbridge - to spice it up we jumped up and down on it a bit, setting off vibrations along the length, and balanced without holding on the handrails. We've gone extreme, man! On the other side we saw some abandoned gold mine stuff and a 4m faultline caused by an earthquake in 1929.
This whole area exploded in the gold rush of the late 19th/early 20th centuries. People came from all over the world (lots of Chinese especially) and lived in canvas shanty towns while they searched for gold in the rocks and streams. We saw a replica of the biggest gold nugget ever found in New Zealand (at 99oz, it actually wasn't that impressive - we'd imagined a huge boulder) amusingly called 'Honourable Roddy'! The real thing had an interesting history including being offered as a prize in a raffle and eventually being melted down to make a teaset for a King somewhere.
Once we hit the coast the charm of this area started to impact. The scenery here was pure NZ, lush forest spilling onto sweeping rugged beaches stretching as far as the eye could see. Angie risked our lives swerving across the road to lay-bys to try and get the perfect picture. There are lookouts, viewpoints, walks and points of interest all along this coast, so we barely got half a kilometre at a time without screeching to a stop and jumping out of the car. Needless to say, it took us quite a while to travel this stretch of coast.
The highlight was a walk at Punakaiki to 'Pancake Rocks'. These are rocks that have been eroded to look like huge stacks of pancakes and the exact details of their formation still evades geologists. At high tide there are numerous blowholes where the water is forced through and high into the air. Do you think we got there at the right time of day? Not a chance.
The hostel we stayed in that night was one we will remember longer than others. It was in a little backwater village a few km before the main town in that area, Greymouth. As we are getting into more remote parts of New Zealand, the Kiwi 'bush humour' is rearing its ugly head more. Generally delivered by middle aged men who think they are comedians, this usually consists of never giving a straight answer to anything. On arrival in Hicksville, we couldn't find the hostel so stopped at the local shop to ask. Darren had to actually walk out of the shop before the owner stopped giving 'cheeky' answers and provided some directions. When we reached the hostel, we soon realised that we were the only backpackers here, which is very unusual as the most of the hostels have been packed. I guess most of them could see past the cheap price tag, free internet and offer of a beer on check-in that lured us! The owner was an english lush and full of humour (oh, how we laughed). The hostel was in the back of a 70's throwback pub complete with a patchwork of tacky carpet that smelt of vomit and a bank of flashing gaming machines. The hostel shared the same kitchen as the pub so the communal areas stank of chip fat. The computer was the oldest and slowest ever seen and we had to stop using it every 30 minutes so the landlord could play online poker! But, free beer in the sunny beer garden was lovely and we had the place to ourselves so we can't complain.
The best bit was when we were leaving the next day. We used the pub's landline to book the next hostel. After some trouble getting the outside line Angie proudly announced that she'd found a hostel for only $42 a night (very cheap for the area we were travelling to) with free internet.
We arrived at the next hostel early that evening and I (Darren) went to reception to check-in. A couple before me were just being turned away and I couldn't help feeling a certain smugness knowing that we had had the foresight to book in advance.
"Double room in the name of Angie, we called earlier today"
"er, no room booked in that name I'm afraid"
"we called this morning and spoke to a chap, he said it was fine"
"Thats odd? no chaps here and I'm afraid I can't find any booking in that name"
This went on for a few minutes, with me trying to work out what name it might be booked under and who we might have spoke to. Eventually I decided to get Angie. After a few minutes of confusion and checking of phone numbers, the penny dropped. Instead of ringing the new hostel, Angie had in fact rang reception at the hostel we were sitting in. Then we both remembered the owner telling us before we left that another English couple had just rang and were on their way! Oh how we laughed. Well, once we'd managed to find another hostel, fortunately just across the street.
Listening to NZ radio on our journeys is like being in an 80s timewarp. It's pretty much non-stop 80s and we hear the same tracks over and over. We've started asking ourselves what has love got to do with it? If Meatloaf would do anything for love what is it he won't do and is it true that girls just want to have fun?
Greymouth Hotels
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