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Hi All,
So when i last left you me and Jen had completed the Abel Tasman coastal track and were ready to head out to the West Coast and South. From Motueka we drove down to the Nelson Lakes National Park where there are some gorgeous mirror lakes and snow mountains reflected in them which made for some great photographs which you will see momentarily! Nelson Lakes is off a small village called St Arnaud which is tiny, so we needed to move on as it was getting late and we needed to park up! Further on we found a small town called Murchison which was also small but at least had a supermarket so we grabbed some food and resisted the temptation for wine meaning we were in bed by about 9! if we don't drink, our clock is pretty much the sun, so when it's up we're up and when it's down we're in bed or drinking!
Our of Murchison Jen thought it would be a good opportunity for here to drive the van (in spite of the fact she is used to the wheel on the left and driving on the right, oh and she has no driving license!) after a look of horror i flat out refused for at least 5 minutes before letting her have 'a go'. I gave me an opportunity to make a funny video, which i never miss, and to be honest it was nice to have a chance to check out the awesome scenery without potentially plunging the van into a rocky gauge! (which has nearly happened more than once, bloody scenery!) Shortly after we came through Buller Gorge which houses New Zealands longest Swing bridge (110m) which we couldn't resist an opportunity to see and it was only like $5! jen saw this as an amusing chance to abuse my fear of heights and jump up and down on the bridge and so not for the first time i had to resist the urge to hurl her off something very high into something very hard! (its love hate with us)
Unfortunately our fun, easy going day was about to get a little more interesting, and i'll let you guess what was the cause.......yes Brian the van! As we headed towards a tiny town called Inangahua Junction i noticed the van was starting to shake a little more than usual at high(ish) speed, as we slowed through the town it was like driving over a field of speed bumps and we pulled over and i heard the sound that still haunts my dreams, a flat tyre! As i looked back, of course it was the spare we had been running on for far too long that had badly ruptured, so we had two flats and no spare, typical! and yes (dad) it does serve me right for not changing the flat from Palmeston North! So we skulked into the local convenience and offered our plight to them and to the womans credit she rang a lot of local people hunting a Hiace spare but to no avail, she suggested we take our flat tyre and hitch to Westport and back which was about 45 mins each way. So we followed her suggestion, we unhooked the flat from Palmy and stuck out our thumbs! Within maybe 10 minutes a huge truck called the Black Pirate pulled up (i was smiling from ear to ear!) and a truck driver named Paul hooked up the tyre to the flat bed and we hopped in, it was like a ride in a fire engine when you're a kid, i LOVED IT. Not only did Paul take us to Westport, he went completely out of his way as he was originally heading for Greymouth. After navigating roads that would be narrow for a nissan micra let a alone the Black Pirate, at an average speed of about 100km/h we were in Westport, and Paul dropped us right outside a tyre specialist. We rolled in the tyre and it turned out the tyre from Palmeston only had a dodgy valve, which he fixed inside 10 minutes free of charge! We picked up some gas and then began hitching again back the way we came. We picked our spot just down from a cafe, and stuck out our thumbs. Well after a few minutes the owner of the cafe saw us an came outside, and was shouting something across the street, we went over and she was inviting us inside for free coffee, cake and biscuits which we enjoyed thoroughly. These people were so kind they even apologised for a slight delay???!!!!! Back to the hitching and a very friendly french couple picked us up in there hired campervan and took us right back to the van. Once again we were completely humbled by how friendly NZ people really are, and in all fairness it made our day far more interesting!
With our tyre in tact, and not a penny spent we cruised into Westport for the second time and swiftly found a pub in which to grab some grub and a beer, and toast our excellent work for the day, and all those who helped us! We had a good night in Westport, but really there isn't a lot there to speak of, just another NZ town. The following day we took in the nearby seal colony and then headed down to Greymouth. The drive between these two towns is dubbed one of the top 10 coastal drives in the world, and boy was it. The sea was fairly rough so we had beautiful blue skies, and smashing waves and mountains and rain forest, you can see why i nearly crash so much! En route was the famous pancake rocks and blow holes, which are apparently spectacular, and in complete honesty aren't! We expected huge flat round rocks, instead they are piles of rocks with lots of lines in them, and they apparently look like stacks of pancakes! What made it worse was hoards of off the tour bus travellers who were taking pictures of every plant, person, plank of wood within a square mile, i kid you not some of these people take a picture of something before they've looked at with with their own eyes! The blow holes were more interesting, these are natural chimneys the sea has carved into the rocks, and when the tide is high enough the sea is blown through these pipes imitating a whales blow hole.
We took some photos (OF THE BLOW HOLES AND NOTHING ELSE!) and drove south to Greymouth, so names as it is at the mouth of the Grey River! Again we found ourselved slightly dissapointed at the place, most of these towns have little interesting to offer compared to the surrounding scenery. We took in the Monteiths brewery tour and once again Brian the van wrestled my patience when he completely cut out, announcing his battery was flat. I believe my exact words were 'you f@#*%*$' but again, a swift stroll to the nearest garage and we got a jump start, no charge again! (uk mechanics could learn a lot from NZ about generosity!) From Greymouth we went further south down to Hokitika, which is the Greenstone capital of NZ (Greenstone is Nephrite Jade, a NZ preciaous stone which is green suprisingly!) Hokitika is a beautiful seaside town with spectacular views of mountains including Mt Cook, we spent a couple of nights here in parking spots actually designated for camper vans, we couldn't believe it as this is very rare! Even more exciting was the 24 hour public toilet!(yes i said exciting, you can't judge us, you don't know how we live!) We boughts some greenstone for each other (such is the Maori tradition) and enjoyed some time by the sea :)
Just south of Hokitika was Lake Mahinapua where we stopped for a little while and took more spectacular photos of lakes mountains etc etc! (you don't get bored of seeing it but you do of writing about it!) and not long after that stop brians left headlight and indicator fell out and clattered against the side (in brians defence this was due to Jen bending her door when she let the wind catch it and hit it against a lamp post!) if this van doesn't kill us both i will be very suprised!!!
From here we entered Glacier country, home to Franz Josef and Fox glaciers and the small towns that run the tourism produced by both. We came to Franz Josef, and due to a lack of money we could only observe from ground level, and though i appreciate the phenomenon, i was pretty dissapointed. But i made an effort to disguise this as i know i am in NZ etc, Jen however made no secret of the fact it just looked like 'dirty snow' and i later discovered she had her nature phenomenons mixed up and was in fact expecting an Iceberg! (i'm so proud of her) but yes it wasn't much to rave about from my point of view. That being said Franz Josef town was a great place, and we had a really good night and met some great people. Fox glacier was much the same if not less impressive so we passed through swiftly and headed down towards Haast where we took in some good sights along the way. We came through Bruce Bay, and discovered that all the people that pass through have created hundreds of small piles of pebbles and stones, which we took pleasure in adding to! (more video!) we also passed Knights point lookout, and Ship Creek, which had a gorgeous beach but it was getting towards dusk so we couldn't hang around too long. Haast is another small town with little to speak of and basically gives way to the spectacular Haast pass, coming out eventually through Wanaka and Queenstown where i am now.
I will leave it here for now as that is plenty long enough. However i will cowardly use this blog as my chance to tell my Mother that i now have a rather large tattoo covering my left shoulder, and i love it :)
take care everyone
Love Ben xxx
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