Sixth NZ post: the West Coast (Greymouth and Punakaiki)

I've started writing this with my second glass of wine in the Koru Lounge in Christchurch - not great wines, but sheesh, we're not going hungry in this place. Impressive spread including cheeses, salads, breads, mussels, cake slices, wines, coffee. I could vacation here at Christchurch Airport!

We'll very much miss the West Coast, and we'll look back at the photos from the past few days and wish we'd stayed longer. I'll skip over the drive through Arthur's Pass to Greymouth a couple of days back and post on that when I get today's return drive photos all sorted. Monday it was grey but impressive. Today was sunny and ridiculously stunning. 300 km of driving took us 6 hours. Yes, lots of photos to come, and not of food either!

Greymouth, despite its name, was not grey when we arrived. We had a bit of trouble finding the B&B (which we recommend!), but eventually made it there. Once checked in to our room and familiar with the surroundings,



we headed into the town to look around (Allison, have you heard the term "trundlers" before? It struck me as funny). In the end, we found ourselves walking along the beach by the little airfield. The water was not a bad temperature, and there was no end of handsome rocks to collect.









No food photos from our dinner that night. We arranged to dine with the B&B owners, Susan and Robert, and had a lively dinner with lots of wine, a tender lamb roast, and plenty of wide-ranging conversation. Wonderful food for being honestly served up (and very well cooked in any case) and accompanied with lots of chat. We went to bed very well fed.

Yesterday we skipped breakfast. Given our big meal the night before, we couldn't face eating more food. What we could do, though, was get in the car and drive north on the scenic coastal highway


to see the pancake rock formations at Punakaiki. High tide was set for 8 that morning, and we were told that was the best time to see blowholes. Alas, we were an hour late, and while we saw the rocks, we saw no blowhole action. (No dirty comments from you, Jeph!) We did, however, time our arrival with the heaviest rain of the morning. Of course!










From what others have told us, there is a line just south of Greymouth that divides wet and miserable from warm and sunny. Our luck, but the rocks were fine nonetheless. As we returned south, we left the rain and instead found a terrific beach for picking up still more stones.