#desinationnz

Podcasts –

Selfies – many

Tears – many

We got off the bus and RPB by the grace of god went to a different Franz Josef hostel to me.

In celebration I checked into a proper nice YHA and hid there in fear for a while, RPB was only two doors down in a very small alpine village after all. It was around 5pm I arrived so I went a quick walk around, it was quite cold and the cloud was well down covering the mountains. Faith in humanity was restored by the really lovely Canadian girl in the bunk above me, we had balanced conversations about pleasant things.

The next day I had booked a shuttle to the glacier carpark but the day was so glorious I wish I hadn’t bothered and had walked the 4.4k with my new Canadian friend whose name I cannot remember for the life of me, the horror of 24 hours with RPB had messed with my mind. In the shuttle were two lovely Swiss women but I didn’t walk the glacier valley track with them either, one was in her seventies and was worried she’d be too slow for me, and she had good English but couldn’t understand me, her daughter had been translating on the bus.

I’m actually glad I didn’t walk with them because I entered a kind of emotional time warp of ten years past and frankly kind of cried at my first view of the glacier. Yes through a feeling of time having past but also from a geographical climate-change point of view because in ten short years the visible glacial ice was so much smaller. The glacier receded in its valley and it was possible to walk so much further up that before. While the glaciated valley itself is beautiful and spectacular on a sunny day I wish it was still full of ice.

I actually saw two glaciers in this one day but that’s another blog post.

She talked all the way to the hostel about how terrible InterCity buses are. Alright, they’re not perfect but they’re reasonably cheap and do the job. We were in the same room. Hmm, okay, harder to slip away now. She asks what my plans are. I don’t lie, just walking around, I say. I should have said I’m going to do drugs in a park, I don’t think she’d have wanted to come along. I don’t know why I didn’t assert myself and make her walk where I had in mind but she came across as very willful and I couldn’t be arsed to argue. And if I’d have told her to piss off like I was dying to it would have been a very awkward night in the hostel room and an awkward next day on the same bus to Franz Josef to boot.

So off we go on a walk. “Let’s go to the beach,” she says as she walks directly inland toward the mountains. Ah the famous sea-mountains of Hokitika, yes, that’ll be where the beach is. She took some convincing to cross a railway line to get to the riverside; there’s no bloody trains in this country, calm down. She threw a fit when I wanted to stop on a quite windy road bridge to take a photo of the river and the mountains, and then seemed similarly displeased when I didn’t want her to take a photo of me “with the nature”, the nature being a pissy little stream. She wouldn’t cross the railway line but had no issue with trespassing and angering a scary farm dog. In between not wanting to risk her life but being perfectly fine with me risking mine to pet strange dogs, she talked. I know everything about this woman. I know what it was like growing up in rural P……….., I know what it was like studying in F………, I know what its like to be a substitute teacher in L……….., I know the nationalities of the kids she hates to teach most, I know all about her previous solo holidays, I know most things about each of her four previous serious relationships, and somehow I even know that really liked Prime Minister Tony Blair. The good thing is she knows nothing about me.

After dinner in the hostel she goes for a shower and I run away. I sit on the beach trying to calm down and forget RPB for a while. I watch a really beautiful sunset and wander up and down the beach in the half-light avoiding going back to the hostel. I walk up to a replica shipwreck and a little way up the river to look at the dark mountains and then enjoy being the only person walking the streets of the little town.

The next day I sneak past her while she’s on the phone in the lounge and poke round the busy town centre in daylight. I head down to the beach again and now on the grass next to the carpark is a cute little painted caravan selling of all things LANGOS! The fried Hungarian bread that is a delicious heart attack wrapped in a napkin. Not the healthiest of breakfasts but it was so so good. Also on sale out a car boot (legit) was greenstone. I went over for a browse and got chatting to the man and woman and they gave me for free a new length of cord for my ten-year-old bit of greenstone as the old one was dangerously frayed. They showed me how to make a slipknot for it and everything, so I buy two chunks of $10 pounamu from them to take home as gifts.

Talk to people, my dad said, make friends, my dad said. Well look how that turned out, Jim.

Podcasts – 2 (it was too wet to pay attention)

Danish people chatted with – 4

Named after the river Grey and not the typical climate, Duke Hostel, painted bright screaming purple and orange was an oddly large hostel with a creepy disused bar downstairs. Slightly creepier was the long term kiwi resident who kept asking people if they wanted a ride up the river on his boat but demanded $60 for fuel. Everyone let him down gently. He didn’t ask me but I went out of my way to be blunt and look unfriendly.

I got a haircut here because what else can you do? There’s some surprisingly upmarket gifty shops to hide from the relentless torrential rain in and I bought designer vegan soap for the secret santa with the fam back in Christchurch. After a short poke round the small town centre despite the pissing rain I went for a walk. Down along the wild, oily-looking river the historical trail takes you through the now disused and slightly eerie coal and gold handling railway line and harbour, down to a pier where there’s a viewing platform. If you look back up the way you came theoretically, optimistically, you should be able to see Mt Cook directly up the valley. Could I? Could I buggery.

I’ve scarce been so wet in my life and I’m from Scotland. Even wetter was my roommate for the night who hired a free bike to cycle what I had walked and apparently travelling into rain at speed gets you wetter than walking through it.

Undaunted (?), I walked up the beach with a vague goal in mind. The beach is made of large grey rocks and the heaving black sea was creeping ever nearer to I walked back a bit on a mountain biking track where I’ve never seen so many wild rabbits. I felt like I’d intruded on a production of Watership Down. While walking I realised the path had zero distinguishing features and in reality ten years down the line how likely was I to recognise the bit of beach next to the campsite we stayed at. I don’t know if it was just the heavy cloud cover but I wouldn’t be totally surprised if Greymouth is just a blackspot – Google Maps wouldn’t load. Anyway I did find it and nothing had changed, and past the graveyard and across the railway tracks was the Australasian. Previously a dingy pub now a hotel and restaurant, check them out, gone up in the world.

The next day, typically the day I was leaving, it was like waking up in a different town. The sun split the sky and it was quite hot! I am the only person in my family to have witnessed this phenomenon, Greymouth under blue skies. As the woman in the art gallery explained its days like that which make it worthwhile living in Greymouth. The sun brought people out into the streets and for a Wednesday I would call it busy, and I too understood why anyone would ever choose to stay there for longer for 24 hours.

The bus came to the scenic historic train station on time to take me to Hokitika, where I would endure my greatest ever test of patience…

Podcasts listened to – 3

Pancake puns made – don’t get me started

Disappointing chicken wraps – 1 too many

I don’t pronounce Punakaiki correctly and nobody seemed to know where I’d been until I mentioned the pancake rocks. The signs dotted around the rocks walkway claimed that nobody knows how they formed, but they say that about Split Apple Rock in Abel Tasman and I’m thinking just ring up a geologist, they can’t be a total mystery? DoC trying to add a bit of mystique to some rocks I reckon.

I still love them. The potential geography student in me was flipping out wandering around the stacks for hours in the drizzle and getting occasionally soaked further by a blowhole. Flat-out one of the best and weirdest free things to see on the west coast. Sorry, these pancake jokes are really crepe.

I was only here for 24 great hours so nothing eventful happened. Hostel looked out over the sea and was one of the best I’ve stayed in, looked after for the summer by a young Texan dude who was the most up-beat person I’ve ever met. Four for you Punakaiki Beach Hostel, you go Punakaiki Beach Hostel. The less said about the Pancake Rocks Cafe however, the better. I was bitching about the shocking service to the French guy in my hostel room and turns out his girlfriend worked there, oops. Felt like a right tosser.

I’m laughing even if nobody else is.

Podcasts listened to – 1

Cereal bars eaten – 5-ish

The only reason I really went to Nelson was to be near Abel Tasman National Park, but due to the earthquake I ended up being an extra three night there which actually wasn’t bad but it all built up to one of the best days of my life (a phrase I’ll be using often).

The Abel Tasman Coachlines shuttle got me from Nelson to Kaiteriteri. I wish I could have stayed longer in the little town, it is built on an amazing cove and to get onto the boat I had to cross the softest whitest sand I’ve ever seen. It was raining and in the queue to get boat boarding passes we were unceremoniously queue-jumped by the four loud old Turkish men who were on my shuttle. There were plenty more British people in the queue and they were soundly dealt with (by a Frenchman bullied by his English wife into saying something) but this meant the whole gang of them gave me dirty looks on the shuttle back to Nelson. Lo and behold they were also on my bus to Punakaiki the next day, and then turned up four days later on the bus to Franz Josef. A grumpy middle-aged kiwi dosser told them to sit down and shut up on the way to Punakaiki and took the heat off me but made for three awkward hours. Sound, thanks pal.

On the packed upper deck of the boat to the start point we got rained on and our view of Split Apple rock wasn’t ideal because the waves were at an awkward angle for the catamaran. There were still kayakers in the water though, boat guide said they were mental, the wind was at 40 knots what ever that means, is that bad?

The only people to get off at Anchorage Bay were me and two women from Auckland. They were doing to Pitt Head Track to a lookout that was about and hour return and taking the wrong path I went with them for a good half hour before I realised something wasn’t right and finally doubled back to the Marahau track.

The first, say, hour was uphill. Seriously uphill. Rocky and steep. I was questioning what I’d done to myself. What further horrors were ahead? Nobody had passed me on the way, was I even on the right track again?! I stopped, had a drink and a cereal bar, walked on a bit and the trees broke for an amazing view back over my shoulder to Anchorage Bay, and ahead was the summit. I felt like a hobbit, or a shit Edmund Hillary. Turns out I was only upset because I was hungry. It was overwhelmingly amazing from here on.

There was a jolly, community atmosphere on the track and everyone said hello to everyone else. There were people with massive packs clearly doing the whole track over a few days, vs me in my trainers and rucksack filled with cereal bars. I did however pass one man in flipflops and another with nothing on his feet at all and felt a bit better about my preparedness. One man had a pack on AND his two year old son on his shoulders, a woman was jogging along it and I high-fived the hoard of kids on a school trip. When I reached the sub-tropical rainforest section of the track the sun was blazing and the scenery was even more spectacular.

At intervals along the track there were opportunities to go down the slope onto some pristine beaches; golden sanded Apple Tree Bay with a view of Adele Island, rocky and spectacular Tinline Bay that looked like something out of Narnia, and Marahau Bay with the tide out is just a sand flat as far as you can see, all bordering incredibly clear blue-green seas. In fear of missing the shuttle back what can take four and a half hours took me only three and I only wish I had known better and could have savoured the amazing sights. I’ve never been so close to paradise.

Anchorage Bay- Felt like a hobbit, looked like shit

Apple Tree Bay – Adele Island

Marahau Bay

Marahau Bay

Apple Tree Bay