Road Trip to Greymouth

April 13th, 2009 Filed under: Life | Tags: greymouth, new zealand, road trip, westcoast

It’s Easter which means a four day weekend. Ivy and I thought that we’d better take advantage of this weekend and get our asses off the couch. Problem was we didn’t have any ideas on what to do. After a couple of hours of failed attempts of discovering awesome cheap things to do on the internet we decided to go with the old fall back Road Trip! So we packed up the car with some sleeping bags and snacks and hit the highway. It was a beautiful day out, so we decided to head over Arthur’s Pass to the Westcoast. The Arthur’s Pass drive is really quite beautiful, with everything from lush forest to snow tipped peaks.

The old Honda had a bit of trouble with some of the steeper slopes, but all in all the drive was fantastic. We went non-stop on the way over since we left later during the day, but made plans to stop at various places on the way home.

We arrived in Greymouth at about 5 pm to a practically empty town. The streets were empty and everything was shut except for some restaurants. Or first stop was the info center where we grabbed a local map and the location of all the hostels in the area. Now to our surprise most of the hostels were booked up even though the town seemed empty. We ended up at The Duke, a hostel in the town center $25 each for a bunk bed.

After arranging accommodation for the night we went to the supermarket and Warehouse for supplies. Turns out every one in Greymouth was at the Warehouse buying up large in Easter Eggs. We picked up some chocolate, peanut butter and bread and some juice. On the way back to the car a we helped a lady jump start her car and she rewarded us with a big bag of M&M’s, always pays to help someone i need out.

Next we went to a pub, Revingtons, for a meal. Here we met two locals. We ended up chatting and they invited us back to Marty’s place to hangout. This is lead to the most incredible conversation where everyone’s skeletons came out of the closet. This is a whole other story which you can read about in my post Crazy Night with the Locals in Greymouth.

After Marty’s we headed back to The Duke and watched the end of Ameile (great movie) with some other travelers before getting an early night.

Got up early the next day and headed off to Punakaiki to see the Pancakes Rocks. We had both seen them when we were kids, but that was more than 15 years ago. It was a nice walk around the small coastal area where these rocks are found. They were pretty much how I remember them, stacked pancake shaped rocks. Really the only thing that has changed is the number of tourist cafes and shops that have popped up around the walk entrance. We also checked out the Punakaiki Tavern where they have a statue of some horses sitting outside drinking some beer. They also have a beautiful garden out back with a fish pond that has the biggest most bloated gold fish I have ever seen.

After the Pancake Rocks we started on the three hour drive home remembering to hit the places we missed on the way over. First we stopped at a little goat farm that sells goat cheese, unfortunately it was closed until the next season. Who know goat cheese had seasons? So on we drove until we hit a river bed, where we stopped and collected some stones for a project I’m working on for Uni and Pre-school.

Next stop was Cave Stream. Cave Stream is this awesome cave that runs right through the center of this hill. The cave passage meanders and twists in pitch darkness for 362 metres between the two entrances. The cave ends in a deep pool with a 3-metre high waterfall. A ladder of iron rungs in the rock climbs up beside the waterfall and a chain and step help the crawl along the overhang ledge to the exit. We didn’t come prepared to actually go through the cave, but we did walk down to the entrance and yelled “Echo”! Ivy even managed to fall into the freezing water while we were walking out, hilarious.

Next we stopped at the Castle Hill Village to see there Easter Art Expo. Turned out to cost a gold coin donation to get in, we didn’t have any cash and the closest ATM was about 70kms away, so had to give that one a miss. So we were back on the road again. Are next stop was in Springfield where they have a giant doughnut that was put there in 2007 to celebrate the release of The Simpson’s Movie. We just had to stop ad get our photo taken with it. Don’t judge us, you would have too.

The last stop on the way home was at the Shefield Pie Shop! This pie shop had a huge sign out side advertising their great pies. To tell you the truth I actually thought their pies were nothing special.

So that was our Easter Road Trip. Check out all the photos bellow.

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