To Graymouth and Hanmer Springs

Our hotel of choice (i.e. it was the only one with vacancies) was just 8 klicks south of Graymouth in a little suburb called Paroa. The drive there was punctuated, as all the days this side of the island were, by thousands of creeks and one lane bridges. Each creek was named (e.g. Rough Creek, Black Creek, Crikey Creek, etc.) but for the most part were dry of water or rainfall. The bridges, however, were numbered (Bridge 1641 being one of my particular favourites). One could almost imagine a civil servant somewhere in NZ with a giant cardbox full of bridge numeric designations and locations around the country ("its Friday 22nd November: Bridge 274 needs checking on; subsistence at the usual rates").

Our Paroa hotel was on the western shore so our porch was facing the setting sun. Cue a couple of tinnies and a good book on the decking. Supper was a t-bone steak after which we trotted the 3 minutes past the grassy dunes to the beach proper to watch the sunset. The beach went on for kilometers in either direction, the spray from the surf making the extremities hazy. At low tide, the beach was covered in bleached, dry flotsam - trees presumably having made their way to the Kiwi shores from Australia's Queensland rain forests. The sunset was a perfect crimson orb sinking into the horizon painting all the dessicated branches and roots on the beach pink. Plenty of NABS pictures I'm afraid (that's Andy for "Not Another Bloody Sunset" picture).

Onward to Hanmer Springs and back over the Alps via Lewis Pass to the Eastern side. We weren't too sure what to expect, just that we had to fill two nights before our pre-booked accommodation in Kaikora. As it turned out, Hanmer is quite a famous place as a "thermal reserve", catering for coach parties to the spas and spring pools. Even the motel room had a whirly bath. Of more interest to me was the quad bike adventures which I duly booked for the next day. Okay, those that know me know I've never ridden a motorbike before but I figured that four wheels should put the balance in my favour. To say that I was the only one who lost control at a bend and put both rider and bike into a very large bramble bush would be a scurrilous lie. We had a 10 year old in our party who did the very same thing (although his was just a normal hedge). It took a couple of my co-explorers to pull my bike out while I tried to stop the bleeding before our guide returned to see where we had gotten to. I did have the distinction of being the only one to get lost and ended up following the river on my own for a quarter of an hour. The guide was very laid back about it all, though.

As Linda has already alluded to, the food was brilliant. Although there's a restaurant in the Rocks in Sidney that has the reputation for having the most outrageous pizza toppings in the world, New Zealand is probably the only place that one could expect to get a lamb and mint pizza, complete with lamb gravy and sweet potatoes floating on the surface. Seventh heaven! Our meal of the second night was just as good: Linda had prime cut of lamb and I had a three pork platter - pork fillet, pork ribs in sauce and a spicy pork faggot. Yum! Life just doesn't get any better than this.