We arrived at Greymouth around 1am via another Intercity bus and booked into the YHA, a converted old priest house. The lady at reception was very helpful and cheerful, she recommended the brewery tour and BBQ for that evening which we went along with. First up we toured around the town, the largest town on the West Coast of the Southland but still only home 30,000 people. There was at least a few more shops and common haunting grounds for us like Mickey D’s and KFC around compared to Westport. Still nothing too exciting though. We visited the Jade Gallery which was cool, Jade being a bright green gem used to make tools and other instruments by the Maoris back in the day, today its carved into beautiful ornaments and pieces of jewellery.
Greymouth is set in the backdrop of snowy mountains, green forested hills and a river flowing out to Tasman Bay. We headed to the Kings Walkway which leads to a lookout over Greymouth town and the surrounding countryside and valleys. The walkway was overgrown and rather treacherous to say the least. It was a 45 min climb and one that Mike and Gary couldn’t handle, turning around at the halfway point. Lazy bones! Conor and I continued through the muck to the summit. Here we found a spectacular view over the countryside. The horizon was made up of rugged snowy mountain peaks in the far distance. These were fronted by green, forested hills which sloped down to a river meandering into the distance. It was picturesque scene and one which was the perfect example of what Gary and I learnt in Mr. Small’s class back in the glory days, rivers, meanders, ox-bow lakes, erosion, deposition, forestry, U-shaped Valleys and snowy capped mountains. Conor departed the top earlier than me in order to take a shower and get ready for the BBQ, he decided to go down a different way to the way we came up. I stayed another 20mins hypnotised by the majestic scenery, before jogging, jumping, skidding down the way we came up.
I returned to the hostel to the 2 lads with no sight of Conor!! Where was he gone? He left me over an hour ago and I’m down before him! So we asked the lady at reception was there another way down from the top to which she replyed “No way, you come down the same way you go up, otherwise there are some dangerous holes that one can fall into”!! Not sounding good! So we headed towards the Kings Walkway to see if we could find him or even hear his cry for help!! We ascended the hill again, painful stuff. We stopped every now and again to shout “CCCOOOONNNOOORRR” to the response of an eerie silence! We got to the top, the first time for the 2 lads, my second time in 3hrs! We shouted again with no response. I showed the lads the route I think he took down, Mike said “That’s ridiculous Tom there is no way in hell he went down there”! We had no choice but to head back to hostel at the hope he returned with the realisation we had now missed the brewery tour and BBQ. We returned to the hostel to find Conor up in the room showered and ready to go out! ‘Where the hell were you?’ as Mike lost the rag with him! Vicious temper when he gets cross! ;-). Conor than informed us he took some crazy way down and ended up in the back of some guy’s garden!
We headed to the BBQ as we still had time and scoffed down as much food as we could and a free pint from the local brewery. We were delighted to find out that the pub would be showing the 1st half of the United – Arsenal match live at 1.45am our time. So we had a few pints and mingled with the local pool players, taking them on the doubles to good success the most of the time it has to be said. The Daly boys have acquired some pool knowledge from meself and Mike during our touring and its coming to good affect now. We must have played 30 games of doubles with the locals!
Go Go Inspector Gadget,
Tom
Greymouth is set in the backdrop of snowy mountains, green forested hills and a river flowing out to Tasman Bay. We headed to the Kings Walkway which leads to a lookout over Greymouth town and the surrounding countryside and valleys. The walkway was overgrown and rather treacherous to say the least. It was a 45 min climb and one that Mike and Gary couldn’t handle, turning around at the halfway point. Lazy bones! Conor and I continued through the muck to the summit. Here we found a spectacular view over the countryside. The horizon was made up of rugged snowy mountain peaks in the far distance. These were fronted by green, forested hills which sloped down to a river meandering into the distance. It was picturesque scene and one which was the perfect example of what Gary and I learnt in Mr. Small’s class back in the glory days, rivers, meanders, ox-bow lakes, erosion, deposition, forestry, U-shaped Valleys and snowy capped mountains. Conor departed the top earlier than me in order to take a shower and get ready for the BBQ, he decided to go down a different way to the way we came up. I stayed another 20mins hypnotised by the majestic scenery, before jogging, jumping, skidding down the way we came up.
I returned to the hostel to the 2 lads with no sight of Conor!! Where was he gone? He left me over an hour ago and I’m down before him! So we asked the lady at reception was there another way down from the top to which she replyed “No way, you come down the same way you go up, otherwise there are some dangerous holes that one can fall into”!! Not sounding good! So we headed towards the Kings Walkway to see if we could find him or even hear his cry for help!! We ascended the hill again, painful stuff. We stopped every now and again to shout “CCCOOOONNNOOORRR” to the response of an eerie silence! We got to the top, the first time for the 2 lads, my second time in 3hrs! We shouted again with no response. I showed the lads the route I think he took down, Mike said “That’s ridiculous Tom there is no way in hell he went down there”! We had no choice but to head back to hostel at the hope he returned with the realisation we had now missed the brewery tour and BBQ. We returned to the hostel to find Conor up in the room showered and ready to go out! ‘Where the hell were you?’ as Mike lost the rag with him! Vicious temper when he gets cross! ;-). Conor than informed us he took some crazy way down and ended up in the back of some guy’s garden!
We headed to the BBQ as we still had time and scoffed down as much food as we could and a free pint from the local brewery. We were delighted to find out that the pub would be showing the 1st half of the United – Arsenal match live at 1.45am our time. So we had a few pints and mingled with the local pool players, taking them on the doubles to good success the most of the time it has to be said. The Daly boys have acquired some pool knowledge from meself and Mike during our touring and its coming to good affect now. We must have played 30 games of doubles with the locals!
Go Go Inspector Gadget,
Tom
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