Punakaiki and Greymouth

Our next road trip was down the west coast and I experienced one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on. Our first destination was the delightful town of Westport, where we used the Internet and left as quickly as possible, just imagine your typical small town, and that was Westport. On our way out of town we stopped at a seal colony, which was really cool to see, but rather smelly. At the beach nearby, Ashley and I attempted to go for a swim with our body boards, however it was so cold, that instead we frolicked around and had a jelly-fish throwing fight, instigated by me of course.

From there we headed down to Punakaiki along the coast line. It was late afternoon and the sun gave the drive the most spectacular light. The ocean stretched out for miles, a sight that I am still not use to, and the coast is lined with rocky islands upon which the waves were crashing magnificently. In Punakaiki we stopped to see the Pancake rocks, which look like giant stacks of pancakes. It claims to be a scientifically unexplained phenomenon, and was rather curious to look at. We stayed and enjoyed the sun set there, and then enjoyed a meal at the local tavern, the only place open past 6:00pm.

We headed off early the next morning for Greymouth, a town of unexpected excitement for us. With some excellent navigating by Ashley, we found a near deserted beach, where we pulled out our mattresses from the car and enjoyed a relaxing morning of tanning and reading. We managed to drag ourselves off the beach by 1:30 in order to experience a Monteith's Brewery Tour, which is New Zealand's most popular beer. We were guided around this smaller scale brewery by a proud employee of the Monteith tradition, and enjoyed an excellent taste of their beers at the end. We had two favorites, the first was the summer beer which is made with honey and ginger flavours and was so unbelievably refreshing that at the end of the tour we just had to buy ourselves a six pack. The second was a lemon and lime infused beer, which was much better than any shandy I had ever tasted.

After finishing our Summer beer, on our prized private beach and enjoying a swim in the waves, we thought we might head out of town to see some glow worms in Hokitika. However, before we made it out of town, we past a large group of boys and Ashley, in order to ensure that we did not leave town without leaving a friendly name for ourselves, jumped out of the car to see where the party was at. And boy did she find it! We were quickly invited to a keg party, and provided our trusty micro-camper, for the keg's transport.

The party was in the style of a high school kegger, and it did not disappoint. We became known as the Canadians, and everyone knew our names, although we could not tell you any of theirs. Ashley in her truest tradition disappeared on me for part of the evening and partook on an adventure downtown, where she enjoyed some much needed time on the dance floor.

We woke up the next morning with a touch of a headache and a craving for McDonald's. We got ourselves together and pulled into the McDonald's parking lot where we were greeted by a few honks from the Dad and a bunch of the kids from the night before. When we entered the store we were greeted by "Oh! The Canadians!!" Needless to say, we managed to make quite a name for ourselves in the small, unsuspecting town of Greymouth!