Greymouth

I don’t really need a great big glass of hot chocolate, but there’s nothing else to do in Greymouth (other than eat a breakfast fit for a King, which everyone else in this Cafe is doing on this wet, thundery Sunday morning). I think the only excitement here is the train from Christchurch coming in at 12.30 and departing at 1.30. The train is actually the reason I’m here at all, and had hoped to fill in my 24 hours and 30 minutes by visiting the museum and a few other places of interest, but that shut at 4.00 on Friday afternoon, and the shops all closed at noon yesterday.

Back in Picton, following my tramp, I had an excellent Wine Tour with gourmet lunch, extra, in the Marlborough Vineyards, then onto Nelson. You won’t be surprised to hear that the coach drivers here are better than in Vietnam. Not only do you know you’re not going to die imminently but the driver gives a very good commentary of the countryside, towns and history of settlements.

Nelson is a City with smart shops, good restaurants and cafes. The Cathedral was started as Gothic and was completed in the 60s, trying to be more modern. A grey marble mish-mash. There is a beautiful sheltered beach and the Abel Tasman National Park is on the doorstep. The first day I took a trip up the coast, with a 4 hour tramp back to the boat pick-up. It rained. The sea was rough. The second day I had designated for museums, it was scorching hot.

The coach drive to Greymouth was stunning. We drove down the Buller Gorge for an hour and a half, and later along the Coast road, listed by Lonely Planet as amongst one of the ten top coastal drives in the world.

The locals have kindly said that on a cloudy day like this, once you cross the mountains in the train, the weather changes. It’s certainly very dry over in Christchurch and they have had four days of bad fires.

I might see some mountains on one of “the world’s most scenic train routes”, but may not.