Greymouth

Well, I´m in Greymouth, a harbor city at the mouth of the Grey river. It´s the largest city on the west coast of the south island, and that doesn´t mean much since it's still quite small. It´s an industrial town with not many attractive features, other than that it is a stopover town to other activities such as river rafting. This does means there are a lot of good yet cheap accomodations here. It also prizes it´s (gold) mining history, with old mining towns close by, some transformed in live action museums where you can ´taste the life of the olden days´.
It´s also a town that was hit by many floods (washing away most historic buildings) until they built a floodwall in 1989. The historic postal office was also torn down in 1995 by greedy land developers after an earthquake. The volunteer at the local historic society sayd the building had no structural damage, but the developers used the earthquake as an excuse to buldoze the site. Now shopfronts line the historic grounds. Only the clock of the old clocktower was kept and now stands on the floodwall.
So it´s not a very pretty town to look at. Just outside the city centre shops ate te riverside industrial grounds take over, with the harbor, garages and other industrial sites mucking up the view. Rust and cracked concrete as far as you can see. I wanted to walk to the beach at the other side of town, but crossing the industrial grounds proved just not worth it. It was hot and the smell of burning tarmac just wasn´t very appealing, nor where the decrepid buildings and desolate views. So instead of going to the beach, I sat on the floodwall by the river. At least here you can walk the floodwall (many people jogg it) and there are benches where you can sit and look over the river towards the sea or at the mountains inland. Otherwise it´s a very unremarcable town. Maybe the park and the beach are beautiful, but without a car, it´s not easy getting there. I dit climb the mountain at Kings Park for a view of the city. A narrow bushwalk op the steep hill almost wrecked me, but the view over the town was nice. I could even see the ocean and what looked like the beach.
So it wasn´t exactly the nicest place I visited in NZ, but the hostel I stayed at (Dukes backpackers) was very cool. Large rooms, a common room and a gigantic shared kitchen. Breakfeast and linnen where included and the second beer at the hostel bar was free, as well as 30 minutes worth of internet All this for just11 Euros! And the owner was very nice too (Israeli born Dory) who in the evening doubled as the bartender. Ready for a quick chat, and always remembering my name, making me feel right at home. At the bar I met a Brittish couple late middle aged, who had just arrived from Christchurch and where doing the Islands by backpacking as well. They rented a car and are visiting for 4 weeks. Funny to see people of all ages use backpacking here in NZ. Even a family with a little kid. It is a great and cheap way to get around if you don´t mind sharing bathrooms and kirchen. Otherwise the hostel was packed with groups of asian tourists and scandinavian couples. I slept in a dorm with 2 other asians, which I only saw once. They came in late and left early.

So how exactly did I end up in Greymouth? I´m here for the tranz alpine train. It goes from here through the NZ alps to Christchurch. I had to take a bus from Nelson to here (a 6 hour ride) and could have gone straight through to with the train, but I thought it would be nice to spend a day in Greymouth and it would prevent me from being so tired I would fall asleep in the train. So stay here wasn´t exactly worht it... But at least I won´t fall asleep on the train! I had a good night sleep here.
The busride here was also worth it. Our amusing busdriver (Steve) always pointed out the sights when we passed them and even gave us a little history lesson now and then. He always punctuated his stories with an exaggerated yeah or oh yeasss to assure us that the amazing things he was tellung us where true. He also was´n to sick to have a chat with the dutch couple sitting in the front, giving some more history lessons or talking about beer (whoever doesn´t like Speights is off the bus! and A dutch person once told me he huses heineken for disinfectant only.) The busride itself went over winding mountain roads, with exciting sights (from one point you could see two snowy mountain tops at once, which was unique in NZ, Steve assured us) Steve didn´t seem to slow down at all for the sharp curves in the road, which made for quite a ride. (he did warn us before we got on the mountain) We also passed the ´most photographed road in nz´, which was a smal stretch of road with a beatiful view of the rocky stream next to the mountain. After we left the mountains, there where some magnificent coastal views to take in, some reminded me of California, which also have winding roads alongside cliffs at the seaside. We also made a little stop at the Pancake rocks and blowholes. Unfotunetaly it was low tide, so the blowholes wheren´t doing any blowing. So all there was to see where the unique pancake rocks. Formations of rock who look like they are made up of thick layers of, well, pancackes.
Now I´m sitting in the public library enjoying free wifi (another plus for Greymouth I guess) My bags are checked in and my train leaves in about an hour.
To pass the time I went to the local historical museum this morning. A volunteer run history house and archive, with some pioneering artefacts and lots and lots of old photographs and informative binders spread out over antique tables. On every subject concerning the town there was some binder or other, moslty comprised of old news paper articles or book excerps, accompanied by old BandW photographs of pioneering folk. A lot of information about the many floods the town had (the last big one in 1985) was also present. The Maori culture and how exactly the first pioneer (T. McKay) bought the land off them in 1870, was a bit of an omission. The only thing I could find was a binder on early Maori history and the green stone craft lead by Maori. Maori culture is more absent on the south island as a whole too. Maybe pioneering Paeka (Europeans) where more thorough in conquering the land from the Maori. But the museum was interesting none the less, with a real home made and chaotic feel to it. Some old artefacts slowly rusting on the carpets. Only real drawback was that pretty much all the photographs on dislpay ( and the walls where covered with them) where print outs and not real photographs. I guess it keeps the cost down...
So soon I´ll be off to Christchurch!