New Zealand Road Trip (Part 1)

After a brilliant day in Christchurch and wishing we could stay another day but we had our schedule to keep to. One we devised ourselves so we cant blame anyone else for the tiredness that is creeping in, we had an early night. because we had a taxi booked for 7 o,clock in the morning to take us to the train station.

We were at the station for the 8:15 TransAlpine express to Greymouth. It goes through the middle of the mountains of the southern island of New Zealand and gives some spectacular views as it goes. I think i took over a hundred pictures of mountains, rivers and trees.

Some will probably never see the light of day again, but here are a couple.

When we hit Greymouth Station there was a scramble for the car rental companies desks which were all in the booking hall in an old station you can imagine what the melee was like. We eventually got seen to and we are currently driving round in a nice MG.

AS there isn't much to do in Greymouth we started our road trip proper with a 2 hour drive to Franz-Joseph where we stayed in a lovely place called Glenfern Villas.

On the way ther we stopped at a place called Hayitaya where they were starting a 4 day competition for people to make sculpture from things they found on the beech.

These arn't for the competition, but were pieces of artwork along the promenade to keep you interested while on your walk

We had a beautiful drive down and I was looking forward to my helicopter ride the next day. The sun had been blazing away all day so things were looking good for tomorrow.

But you go to sleep optimistic and your dreams are shattered by clouds on the mountain. The helicopters wern,t flying today because of poor visibility on the mountain and because the flight I had booked included a landing on a glacier i couldn't go. Very sad face.

We then started the next part of our drive 300k to Queenstown where we were going to be staying for three nights. A bit of a rest from driving. A rest that was needed after this leg. we had torrential rain for about half the drive through the mountains, and Wilma took the wheel because of the twisty tourney roads she doesn,t like being in the passenger seat for.

In the last 50 k we went over the Crown range that ended with a Swiss alpine style switchback road. see the picture on the right, this is the crown range..

We Ended up in Queenstown at the St Moritz hotel where the reception was on the 4th floor, the car park was on the 3rd floor and we were on the 2nd. As it was built on a hill it was like an iceburg with more things going on below the surface than above it. It was the hill that killed us.

The room was very nice and the hotel was very eco friendly throughout, but when it came to breakfast it wasn't up to much. although the food was on hot plates the sausages and bacon were always cold, and the water for the tea was in pump flasks that could have been there hours. Anyway that's my moan over for now. more about breakfast later.

We had a couple of days without driving. on the first we took a boat trip to Walter Peak farm where we had a barbecue lunch and a quick look around the farm and gift shop (as you do) And Yes that was Wilma on a boat for the second time this holiday,

on the second day we took a gondola (Not the boat type) to the top of the mountain, where I had a go on the Luge. It was nice and dry when i was queuing to go on but when I was halfway up the chairlift it got stuck and stopped and then it started raining. I got soaked coming down the first run. By the time I was going up for the second run it had stopped,

We had a nice freshly made Pizza in the cafe before coming down to the town where we had a wander round then a drink in an Irish bar, We took a taxi up to the hotel because the hill took it out of us both.