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Day 155- Stray had organised a historic walk of the village for us all at 9am so we checked out and got our bags on the bus in time to meet a local lady who would give us the tour. She started by telling us about when it was founded and the glory days of the coal boom when the population was up in the thousands and there was lots of money to be made, she then took us for a walk past the social club and past a few houses until we arrived at the community centre which was originally the governors house. Then we walked down a dirt path to one of the old batteries and mine entrances where she give a further history of the mines themselves. The tour lasted around 2 hours and was really good, we then had half an hour before the bus was due to leave so we stopped by the Blackball Salami company where they offered a huge range of salamis such as venison, garlic venison, garlic pepperoni beef pepperoni the list was endless and after many, many tastings we decided on garlic venison! The bus drove down the road to Greymouth where we all had to get off and this was one of the journeys where we were on the waiting list. So we asked the driver if we were on the list to continue on to Franz Josef and he said that only I was on the list and that Eve wasn't. However that morning we checked on both our online accounts to find that we were BOTH confirmed on the bus. We had an hour to 'explore' Greymouth before the bus left, so with that in mind we walked to McDonald's to use the free WiFi to make sure we read the online accounts correctly and along came with us a Swedish couple who were called Robin and Madeline who were also on the waiting list and wanted to check. We were definitely confirmed on the bus, unfortunately Robin and Madeline weren't and would have to stay in Greymouth an extra day. After walking back I jumped on the bus and put our bags on and then we went to see the driver, there was about 5 people who apparently weren't on the drivers list, two of which had online confirmation. Eve said she was getting on regardless of what his list said and then I did a bit more forcefully so Eve thought it be best for me to wait on the bus. 5 minutes later Eve came onto the bus and said that one of two German lads were not on the list but his friend was and so said they would hitch-hike and therefore gave Eve his seat- luckily for the driver I think. Another 20 minutes of commotion and the two German's got on anyway along with the other girl who had a confirmation email. So in the end there was sufficient seats and even one left spare for the German who got on. A load of commotion for nothing. Only the two Swedes were left at Greymouth and we drove on. We stopped at a random cafe called The Bushman's Centre. This was ran by a 'no messing about' bloke who believed in everything that was primitive. Some would say his cafe/museum was distasteful and others would be extremely offended. Me and Eve laughed our way around the place and even purchased a possum pie. Possum as meat can not be legally sold yet they are a pest to most farmers and are culled. So with the bodies they skin and sell the skin as wool and 'give out' possum meat pies for free, as long as you give a $4 dollar donation which goes towards a cause called Stop Poison 1080. This is a pesticide put into the rivers by the government however it poisons the animals that drink from the river such as deer. The pie was really good though and had a texture similar to beef and a taste to that of rabbit. Finally we arrived into Franz Josef which is famously known for its glacier and we eventually agreed on paying the money for an Ice Explorer hike. We booked it and were given a time of 8:00am for check-in the next day. We were really excited for it as to get on to the glacier we would be taken by helicopter and then we had three hours hiking on the glacier itself. We cooked up some pasta for tea and had an early night.
- comments
mam sounds like a strange couple of days xx