January 12 - January 14

Saturday, January 14

This update will be relatively short as this leg is mostly just a one night stay near Greymouth to work our way down the West Coast. There is LOTS of driving involved and no big balls of twine or other tourist attractions to capture our attention.

We left the farm with an expected five or six hour drive and immediately started getting stuck behind old cars. At this point we weren't sure what the deal is other than there seemed to be antique cars all over the road. This was troublesome since almost every road in New Zealand is just a single lane in each direction with occasional passing lanes. Later in the day, we finally determined that there is an Antique Car Road Rally that is traversing the South Island.

We stopped for lunch in Murchison where we again ran into problems with restaurant food shortages. Apparently a lot of the restaurants are unable to deal with the number of tourists and meals they require. This is the fifth time we've run into restaurant problems. Examples of this include:

  • Murchison cafe without any ham or Diet Cokes (Doug wanted a ham paninni and we both wanted Diet Cokes

  • Motueka cafe without any steak, chicken or vegetables.

  • Motueka Italian place which at first would only make pizzas and then by the time we left could only make the largest (family) size pizza

  • Ohakune Italian which wouldn't make any non-pizza items and would only take orders one table at a time and then would prepare everything for that table before taking the next order (we finally left and found another restaurant)

  • Waitomo pizza place that ran out of cheese for their pizzas

After lunch we went to New Zealand's longest swing bridge and we each paid $5NZ to cross it. It's only a single-width bridge, so when we encountered someone wanting to cross around us, someone had to stop and "suck it in."

We finally hit the west coast and stop at the Pancake Rocks. We were there at low tide (as it seems we always are) and we missed catching the blow-holes, which are supposed to be very impressive. The Pancake Rocks are pretty cool. The rocks layers are stacked one on top of another, like pancakes. From the provided literature, the geologists don't exactly know why they come out like this.

We continued down the coast (even through a penguin crossing stretch) on our way to Moana where we are spending the night. Moana is just outside of Greymouth where we have rented a small house. It overlooks Lake Brunner which is reported to have some of the best trout fishing in the world. Trout is not native to New Zealand. They were imported here about a hundred years ago and apparently they like it here. From the pictures we've seen, they get HUGE.

Moana is a small town with about 70 permanent residents. A doctor makes a visit here once a week (on Tuesdays), but there is a regional nurse on-call around the clock.

The house was spacious enough, was in good condition, and had a great view, but the water pressure was dismal. We think they installed a conservation valve on the shower, because it was just a little more than a trickle. To cut back on energy usage, they had the hot water heater set to something just a little above luke-warm. They then had a supplemental hot water heater just for the kitchen sink so you could get the water temperature to a safe level for cleaning purposes.

Travis LOVED the decor (at least that's what Doug thinks) and now has some ideas for how to decorate his place back in Houston.

After a quick pub meal, we made our way down to the lake and took some sunset pictures (we had a lack of anything else productive to do).

Sunday, January 15

We leave our stylish rented house and hit the road again heading to Franz Josef.

We stopped in Hokitika for lunch and got in some shopping and then drove the rest of the way to Franz Josef.

We've booked a heli-hike trip to the glacier for Monday followed by a 1/2 day hike on Tuesday. We'll report out on those in our next report.

We'll catch everyone in a couple of days!

Logistics

The stop near Greymouth is just a resting spot (1 night) along a fairly long drive. This is along the western coast of the South Island which is supposed to be one of the most scenic drives in all of New Zealand.

We're staying with one of the locals who is a trout fishing guide.

Some of the things we are expecing to see along our drive:

Pancake Rocks and Blowholes

Doug on New Zealand's longest swing-bridge (crosses Buller Gorge)

Travis contemplates the construction of the swing-bridge.

Our drive down the west coast looked a lot like this. The west coast of the South Island is a lot less populated than any of the coasts of the North Island. This is the Tasman Sea.

Travis climbing around again. You would think he would have learned his lesson from that big hike (which we're not talking about anymore).

Doug at Pancake Rocks.

Travis at Pancake Rocks. If you look closely, you will see that the rocks look like they're stacked on top of each other (like pancakes).

Panoramic shot at the Pancake Rock cliffs.

Travis at Pancake Rocks.

View of Lake Brunner from the deck of our rented house outside Greymouth.

Stylish!!! Our main piece of furniture at the rented house (take notice of the fringe on the edge of the rug).

We're having a time warp back to the 60's with this choice of flooring! It's GROOVY.

Despite the ugly furniture, we get a good sunset.

We stop in Hokitika (locals call it Hoki) on the trip from Greymouth to Franz Josef for some lunch and some souvenir shopping.