Home

Just after midnight, Saturday 8 June 

Wow!!!! 

Last morning

Ok so my addiction is getting worse. I've branched out to mocha; here they pronounce it "mucka". I don't care what they call them.....they're yummy, not as sweet as ours. And Rick had his flat white ;-). See the "silver fern" design in the cup on the right? It's the official symbol of NZ.

The Pacific

 

We took the city bus out to Sumner ('burb of Christchurch). It was a gloriously sunny day and we thought it a great way to spend our last full day on holiday.

The water was a bit chilly--cramping the feet chilly. 

Nothing but open ocean all the way to South America--opposite side from our recent visit to the Tasman Sea in Greymouth. The area has lots of those beautiful Norfolk Island pines.

Ended the day back in Christchurch at a great pizza & beer place in town. Travel to Sydney tomorrow.

Travel day

We are scheduled to leave Greymouth on the train at 12:45pm....back to Christchurch by 7pm tonight. It stopped raining--whew--but is still very cloudy. We'll see what we can see on the train :-)

No exaggeration, my amateur meteorological calculations estimate 5 inches of rain while we were here. It's a rain forest!! 

Here's a look at the view as we came east across the mountains. It was snowing and much colder than when we went west a few days ago.

Rainy day

So after the beach we went into town and found ourselves at James Speight's pub--yum! The perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon. Great beer, fish chowder, and the Stanley Cup playoffs on the tube. 

And out the window...

We walked along the flood wall of the Grey River towards the ocean. We didn't get all the way (raining too hard) but we could see the waves from the ocean coming back into the river...never saw that before. Rick said maybe the tide was coming in. Most tidal rivers I've seen just kind of flow into the ocean. From what we could see, it was more of a clash, not a flow :-)

We wandered around town a bit but it continues to RAIN so we came back "home" for hot showers. Time to chill. 

The Tasman Sea

Last night it rained all night--I mean RAINED!!! You could hear the waves crashing and the wind howling but we were comfy and cozy. And outside it's not nearly as cold as it sounds/looks, thank goodness.

This morning I had to see the Tasman Sea. It's a short walk from where we're staying. Open ocean all the way to the tip of South America...and it looked that way today. 

The stones on the beach--some of them are the green mountain jade the Maori people carve and used for traditional weapons. When they are dry they look like rocks but when wet (or polished) they are wonderful colors of green. 

Wonder how many rocks United Airlines will allow in my carry-on bag?

From Christchurch to Greymouth

This morning we set-off from Christchurch (East coast) to Greymouth (West coast) via he Tranz-Alpine rail.  

While we were at the train station we witnessed the most wonderful sunrise anyone could imagine.  The following photos were done with my I-Pad (no filters were used).

Here is a photo of us just before boarding.

The next set of photos show some of the beautiful scenery while en route.  We climbed from sea level to ___ meters (___ feet) above sea level.

Here is a photo of Chris enjoying the views.

We made several stops along the way to pick up passengers and for some photo shoots.  The trip across the "Southern Alps" is 300 km (200 miles). 

We spent much of the trip, especially the climb, on he "observation car."  It is open -- without windows -- and very windy (so much so that my woolen hat blew right off the train at about 60 mph). 

The views, however, were spectacular. 

And here is a picture overlooking one of the glacial rivers with a rainbow adding to the natural beauty of the landscape.

After coming down the mountains to sea level we spent the afternoon at our hostel which is the nicest one we have been at yet.  Unfortunately, it has been raining so we have not wandered too far from our lodging.  (In the meantime, I am already trying to figure out how I am going to carry Chris back onto the train on Tuesday because she already told that will not want to leave -- and we haven't even explored the town yet).

Rick