I am going to double up my hike through the Abel Tasman and my drive/night in Greymouth because either one doesn't have enough detail to warrant their own entry but together they can make a good sized read.
The Abel Tasman was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life and the reason it doesn't warrant it's own entry because I don't know how many different ways you can say amazing. I could go on and talk about each beach and view but each was more stunning then the last. We took an hour bus ride to a place called Kaiteriteri where we boarded a boat sitting on a beautiful beach. We then took the boat from Kaiteriteri to Ancorage Bay down the coast. It was a beautiful boat ride with the rocky shoreline and blue water. I was doing this hike with several other Magic passengers and two of which I have become friends with. Isak the Swede, Clara the German and Ivy the Asian was tagging along. We disembarked the boat onto the golden sand beach and I would have gladly stayed there for days! It was so stunning! The water was clear blue the sand was soft and golden and the shores were rocky and beautiful. We stayed a while, took some pictures and then started out on the hike. It said it was a 4 hour hike and we had 6 hours to complete it before the bus picked us up at the end. This left lots of time to hike down to the gorgeous beaches and scramble around the rocks. I would have been perfectly content to sit on the beach all day. Some parts of the hike were steep and taxing but over all the actual walk was quite nice. It was also good to have the company, and to laugh and joke around while we walked. I took a lot of photos but none of them will ever compare with how beautiful that place was. All those memories will be kept in my head until I go crazy! I wish I could write more about the Abel Tasman but really I don't know how else to say how beautiful it was. I guess it is one of those places that leaves you without words.
Hiking the Abel Tasman was my last day in Nelson and I was boarding the bus in the morning headed for Greymouth. I knew we had two stops in between, but I had also heard that it was a very long day on the bus, so I was not looking forward to that. We boarded the bus early in the morning and our bus driver, Cam, seemed so cool I bet he shits ice cubes. Although he seemed way less stuffy then Greg who I had on my way from the ferry to Nelson. So we hopped on and our first short stop was a place called Cape Foulwind. We didn't have a whole lot of time there to look around, and the weather was cloudy and kinda shitty. Cape Foulwind is not named so because of the foul smelling odour or anything. It is actually named because when Captain Cook sailed around the coast of New Zealand he sailed into that cape and there was no wind for 3 days and he got trapped because he couldn't sail out. The wind there was 'foul' so hence the name. Cape Foulwind was a stunning place with a great little walk along the coast to a fur seal colony to have a look at. The large rocky cliffs with the beautiful waves crashing against it was a sight to be seen. I bet that place would have been a beaut in the sunshine! I would have gladly spent a day just there in Cape Foulwind, and who knows maybe I will make my way back there someday without the magic bus so I can stay a little longer. The seals were cool. A whole little colony of them just hangin out on the rocks having a nap. They were cool little guys!
From Cape Foulwind it was on to the Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki. This was another stunning place with lots of palm trees around and beautiful coastline. The pancake rocks are named that because they look like stacks of pancakes. The rocks were formed under the sea thousands of years ago and then they were thrusted up from the sea floor with all the volcanic and plate-tectonic activity. The coastline looks very very beautiful and the blue water crashing against them was so peaceful. We ate lunch there and then jumped back on the bus for our drive to Greymouth.
Greymouth is a very small town on the west coast but it is actually the biggest town on that section on the west coast. When we were driving through the town to our hostels Cam said that there was a bar in the Neptunes backpacker. He said it wasn't like a night club if you were looking for a big night out, but a good chill out bar. I was staying at Noah's Ark backpacker, which besides the fat smelly guy in our room, was great. I was going to do a brewery tour in Greymouth but the brewery was under construction so they stopped the tours for now. So come evening time Clara, myself and an English girl Sahria decided we would go down to to the Neptunes bar and have a beer or two and maybe meet up with some of the other magic passengers. So I got ready, changed my shirt and we headed off. As we were walking through the town, at 8:00pm, it was a ghost town. The streets were empty of cars, people and any other signs of life. We would walk past restaurants and they were completely empty. We didn't quite know where Neptunes was but we figured we couldn't get lost, it was either on this street or the other one. We found it after a bit of looking, and it was down in this industrial looking area that I am sure they have filmed horror movies in before. We could see the lights on in the front but nothing that resembled a bar. We approached the building and it looked like a regular hostel with no signs indicating a bar. So we followed the signs to the side of the building where we found a door to get into the hostel with a sign saying something about a bar. So we went inside and there was no reception or anything so we started walking around trying to find the bar. We walked in to what was their TV room or lounge and turned to come out when Sahria noticed a guy sitting in the corner in what looked like a shed. She stopped and asked him, “Is this the bar?” Sure enough that guy sitting in the shed with the fridge was the “Bar” at Neptunes! Well all three of us could barely speak because we were laughing so hard. We figured what the hell and got a beer from him. He was a nice enough fella from England and was funny to chit chat with. We only had the one beer there though, because I mean common!
After Neptunes we went in search of an actual drinking establishment and were told to head to a place called Franks because it would have live music on a Saturday night. So we found Franks and sure enough there were a couple of hippies with guitars strumming away! We only stayed there for a drink then headed back to the hostel to turn in early for our next days adventures.
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