Day 31

Punakaiki to Greymouth 56km

The campsite at Punakaiki was very nice: enormous limestone cliffs to the west and the ocean to the east, and only $10. I spent the morning walking on the beach waiting for good light to take pictures.

The trip to Greymouth was one of the best scenery-wise of the entire trip. Many, many high bluffs to climb but at the top of each yet another incredible view. So far the west coast is much more impressive than the east. It was anther scorching day here on the west coast, the region of NZ known for lots of rain. A bit of a weather update: throughout my time on the north island I keep hearing about how it was still winter on the south island. A British couple in Wanganui told me of spending the second day of January stuck in a torrential downpour for over eight hours (in their car) where flooding had washed away the road near Fox glacier. I'll be there in two or three days. Now that I'm here on the south island there is a massive low covering the north island complete with hailstorms and flooding throughout the east cape. At some point I'm surely going to get blasted by bad weather...

Anyway, on this day it was really hot but quite beautiful and I took many photos and drank lots of water. Greymouth itself is a pleasant enough town, though I have noticed in each of the NZ towns I've visited the place is completely deserted by 7:00pm. I got a campsite at a backpackers which pleasantly enough was actually quite.

As in Westport they actually burn coal to heat the water in the building. An actual coal burning stove was in use in the kitchen. Haven't seen that since Granny's house in Afton. During the night the famous westerly winds were absent and, as in Westport I smelled coal burning throughout the night. I shouldn't complain, in Utah coal fires run the power plants but the pollution is way out in the desert were we can pretend it doesn't directly affect us. Early I posted that global climate change is taken a evident here in NZ. Apparently not, I read in the local paper a column called 'ask the minister' who in response to a question about global climate change declared, if I may paraphrase, the entire issue to be an elaborate hoax perpetrated by godless secular humanists unwittingly doing the bidding of the anti-Christ.