Tag Archives: Greymouth

New Zealand, South Island

Greymouth to Woodstock (no, not that one)

 It rained overnight and as we drove north from Greymouth we ran into successive rain showers, which once again deprived us of the views of the Southern Alps that we’d hoped for.

DSCN6682 IMGP3709We also ran into the most enormous ‘convoi exceptionnel’ coming south towards us, which forced us and all other vehicles to pull over to the side of the road to avoid being flattened by whatever it was they were moving – which looked something like a cross between a medium sized house and a Space Shuttle. As half of the road bridges in this part of the country are single track and look rickety enough to be used in a Disney theme park we couldn’t work out where it had come from or where it was going – but, believe me, it was big!

DSCN6674Driving in New Zealand is a fairly painless experience. With a national speed limit of 100km, which most motorists seem content to obey, both driver and navigator have time to enjoy the scenery – especially if you’re at the wheel of a clapped-out VW campervan which struggles to manage some of the climbs up through the mountains in anything greater than third gear. The other pleasurable aspect of motoring over here is the price of diesel, which at $1.50/litre is about half the cost of fuel in UK – though watch out for the sneaky tax on diesel vehicles, which I gather they levy at the end of each hire.

As we crept over the last of the passes through the mountains we left the last (hopefully) of the miserable weather behind us and dropped down into the Nelson Region which is known for wine making and fruit growing and ……. yes, you’ve guessed, more beautiful scenery. Staying at a place called Woodstock in a campervan appealed to something in the hippy side of my nature – though these days I’m more interested in free Wi-Fi than free love.

New Zealand, South Island

Franz Joseph to Greymouth

The journey up the west coast from Franz Joseph to Greymouth should have been spectacular (another word that’s getting a good hammering in this blog) but the weather didn’t do us any favours and such views that there were were limited to watching heavy seas beating against the coastline.  Considering they get rain on at least 200 days of the year and the region’s described as a temperate rainforest we probably shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Aside from a short-lived gold rush in the mid-1800s the West Coast region hasn’t really had too many lucky breaks.  Apparently there’s some coal and of course there’s logging and fishing, but the real problem is the lack of road and rail infrastructure and the consequent difficulty in gaining access to the area across the Southern Alps.  As you drive along you gain the impression that this part of the country is the poor relation in comparison with some of the other, prettier and wealthier parts of South Island that we’ve visited over the past couple of weeks. They call it the Wild West, and it’s easy to see what they mean.  We did, however, enjoy our brief stop at Hokitika where a wander through the Museum told us all about the history of the town and a walk along the beach will provide a great introduction to my new book – ‘101 things to do with driftwood’!

IMGP3691Greymouth doesn’t get a terribly good write-up in the guide books, so we took them at their word and gave the town a miss – though we did deign to stop overnight on a large open space overlooking the sea to the north of the town along with a dozen or so fellow travelers.