Zelma’s Trip

In the morning I collected my next relocation from Europcar.  It was actually rather nice as, for the first time, I was collected from my hostel by a member of staff from the car hire company.  It was great but also slightly strange as the guy was just standing in reception when I checked out and had made no attempt to let me know that he had arrived.  Anyway, he drove me to the office and I did the obligatory signing my life away, acknowledging that the car was perfect etc before getting the keys and the all clear to go.  When I got in the car (a Kia) I looked to my left and then nearly had a heart attack.  It was an auto!  I know that automatics are meant to be easier to drive than manuals but I had never driven one and, for some reason, the thought of doing so concerned me somewhat.  I went back into the office and asked if I had the right idea in terms of what I thought I needed to do to make it go and stop and the guy on duty answered my questions very patiently.  When I headed off it was completely fine but I still had the odd urge to change gear.

I had decided to head to Greymouth (which is on the opposite/ West coast of the South Island to Christchurch) along Arthur’s pass.  Arthur’s pass goes through the mountains which run down the middle of the island and also has one of the most spectacular rail routes from Christchurch to Greymouth.   I did actually look into getting the train rather than doing a relocation but it looked like it would work out to be more expensive.  Relatively soon after getting into the mountains the weather turned and it all became rather grey.  This then turned into heavy rain and I was extremely glad to be relocating a car rather than a van and was seriously glad that I was not driving the six-berth which I had relocated previously.   A lot of the lorries on the route had actually stopped and I didn’t blame them.  Despite the weather, the scenery was amazing.  Infact, it almost added to it with everything looking even more woolly and rugged and waterfalls streaming down the mountainsides to the road.  On occasion they were streaming onto the road which was arguably slightly less cool but it was all fine.  When I got to Arthur’s pass itself I stopped in one of the cafes to get lunch.  You can imagine my delight when who sprang up but Ruwa, the crazy Kiwi from the pub in Christchurch!

When I arrived in Greymouth I checked into the "Global village" backpackers’ which was run by two older guys who I guess you would describe as hippy types.  They were very friendly and had clearly travelled extensively with various things collected from their travels adorning every possible space on the walls.  This is another one I’d recommend actually, without wanting to sound like an advert.  I was reliably informed by the hippies that I had enough time to drive to the "pancake rocks" in Punakaiki so decided that I would do so while I still had the car.  The drive was along the coast but it was slightly different to my previous coastal drive as it was raining.  The pancake rocks themselves were rather amazing limestone formations so called as they looked like piles of pancakes one on top of another.  There were also geysers which shot up through blowholes in the rock as the tide crashed in.  It was another sight which was possibly enhanced by bad weather, if that makes sense, as the sea was thundering in with the wind and rain and the volume of water shooting out of the blowholes was amazing.