Down Under - 2/23/14 - TranzAlpine Train from Christchurch to Greymouth

Another early morning greets us with cloudy/rainy skies BUT another great hotel breakfast...I should have bought clothes with the "relaxed fit" as my waistline is surely relaxing with all of this scheduled eating.  We did bring our fitbits over here but sadly we are not even maintaining at 10,000/day...many days we break the 10k goal but some we do not.

Our driver meets us at the hotel and gives us a short ride to the station where we dump our bags at the back of the train and head for our seats.  Sadly, this is yet another trip where I have overpacked and probably could have left 30-40% of what I brought...I can easily tell this by the wincing of the baggage person as he lifts my little bag into the car...oh well, next trip.

The TranzAlpine train  http://www.kiwirailscenic.co.nz/tranzalpine/   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TranzAlpine
starts on the eastern side of the south island, climbs the mountains and then descends to Greymouth on the western coast.

Sitting in our seats were 3 local women who needed to be politely moved...they then took over seats in front of us.  They were kind of funny and were in constant motion, especially when one of them went to the bathroom.  I don't think they understood you could lock the bathroom door and seemed to post a guard whenever one went in.

The first part of the trip was cloudy/rainy and this was due to the geography of the plains that smack up against the mountains.

Then, as we begin to climb and gain altitude the clouds give way to glorious sunlight and stunning scenery.  The train has an audio track that is tightly synchronized to where we are in the journey...it is filled with history of the area, the train and mining.  Gold played a significant role in the colonizing of NZ and the growth of various towns...miners flocked to NZ from all over the world including the US.  They are also rich in coal.

You can see the ghost of Arthur Pass wandering the hillside

Hotel

We eventually arrive at Greymouth  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greymouth ...it looks pretty sparse.

Our driver meets us at the station and his name is Bruce Jeffords and he will drive us around for the next 3 days.  NZ is a very big place with not a lot of transportation, a car is essential or in this case a large windowed van that seats 10 or so.  He packs all of our bags in the back like a complex puzzle and we are off.

Bruce is a talker...did I say Bruce liked to talk?  He really did like to talk and would periodically ask us if we were awake!  He was from the UK and so far in his life he was adopted, found his parents, was a cop, wrote travel articles, had a wife he referred to as "the dragon", been to Antarctica for months, had various businesses, lost all his money in the stock market...there's lots more.

Our first stop is the town of Hokatika http://www.hokitika.org/ and our primary mission is to scout the native green stone...jade.  This town is also the setting for the Man Booker award winning book, The Luminaries. 

Come in to be abused!

We walk around town looking at the shops.  The first shop we walk into, knitted stuff, the proprietor greets us with "Here come the rich Americans" and she begins to verbally abuse us in various ways...we love this and buy a lot of things!  I also play with her little dog who loves me.

Playing with the dog did not get us any discounts

NZ possums are much cuter than ours

Sock machines...never saw one before

Turns out she regularly travels to Joplin, Missouri and all over the US.  She is a major knitter and makes socks and gloves out of possum fur mixed with Merino wool.  It seems like a couple of Aussies brought over some possum from Australia and now there are 40 million of the little buggers and NZ wants to kill them all.  She has a great collection of knitting machines.








Back to the van and we continue to drive south along the coast, heading to our hotel that is in Franz Joseph.

The scenery is rugged and spectacular and there are not a lot of people around.

We eventually arrive at our hotel and look who greets us!

More about Melvin in the next post!