Total Nights and Distance Travelled on Tour to Date = 64 Nights & 3080 Kms
There’s no doubt about it – our South Island Odyssey Tour has opened our eyes to the vast assortment of places one can stay while touring the country. We’ve been to various Motor Camps of course, and several interesting NZMCA sites, along with POPs on private property. Add to that a smattering of Domains, several Race Clubs and a few nights when we have gone the “freedom camping” way – always in the company of our travelling companions for added safety. But while in Greymouth, we can tick off another first, this time camping overnight amongst the cars at a sales yard.
To be fair to the owner, the grounds have been set up to accommodate his combined businesses of car sales and a motor home park. Plug in power poles are set around the perimeter, together with water taps, and a dump station is on site. When he needs more space for caravans, he just moves his cars around, he told us. There is a nice amenity block with showers and toilets, plus a wonderful laundry – just the thing to gladden the heart of a compulsive washer women like me.
Being a Sunday morning, our day started off with a big breakfast of bacon, eggs, and a few slices of our recently purchased Blackball black pudding, lovingly cooked by Robin. With a few chores out of the way (laundry and vacuuming) by late morning we were set to explore what Greymouth had to offer. Geoff and Pauline were keen to show us the cafe where they had enjoyed a large whitebait fritter sandwich the previous day. They were very reasonably priced too, so four of us ordered one each for an early lunch. Quickly followed by Geoff and Pauline who had only just told us that they couldn’t possibly eat another whitebait fritter two days in a row, and they quickly relented once ours were delivered to the table.
Fortified by our tasty lunch, we took a walk along the aptly named “Great Wall of Greymouth”. This was built in 1991 after two disastrous floods. As well as protecting the town from flooding, it directs the force of the river currents against the sand bar at the river mouth, thereby reducing the amount of dredging needed to keep the channel free.
This fine looking building must have started life as something quite different, but these days is the “Speight's Ale House”. Speight's is to South Island beer drinkers rather like the Tui brand is to North Island beer drinkers, both sides of the ditch have their favourite tipple, and woe betide anyone who runs it down.
A drive down to the breakwater and the river mouth gave us good views of the pounding surf and the floodwall rocks. A monument, unveiled in 1993, stands to commemorate the many lives and boats lost while trying to cross the treacherous sand bar, and also to those lost in the seas, lakes and rivers of the district.
“Crossing the Bar”
Sunset and the evening star, and one clear call for me
And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea
We took a drive out to Runanga to check out another place to stay on a future trip, and came across this wonderful old Miners Hall, built in 1908. Although a sign proclaims that the hall is suitable to rent for meetings, dances, cabarets and concerts, a more modern sign states that “Earthquake prone building, enter at own risk”. This lovely old building must have reached its “Use By” date, we feel.
A wooden planter box outside the hall was made and gifted to the people of Greymouth in 2011 in memory of the Pike River Mine disaster by several local companies. This is just one of several memorials we have seen in honour of those lost in the Pike River disaster down here in the West Coast. Feelings run deep amongst all these former mining towns in the West Coast.
Greymouth is the largest town on the West Coast, situated on the mouth of the Grey River, and was named after a New Zealand Governor, Sir George Grey. After two days camped in the car sales yard, we are moving on tomorrow.
Romany Rambler: Travelled 22,272Km; 409 Total Nights
1 comment:
I've been in Greymouth! But, having just gotten off the Transcenic Railway, and renting a car to continue toward Franz Josef Glacier, we didn't see much of Greymouth. Thanks for sharing your pictures!
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