Thursday, May 10

May 10, 2007

Today, we woke up around 8:30 or so and got ready to drive all day. We loaded up and went down to reception to ask the best way to get out of town driving over Arthur’s Pass. That done, Josh had to comment on how it always takes me so long to get ready to leave in the mornings. I have no excuse, it’s true.

We got a bit turned around trying to leave town, however, it was fortunate for us because we ran across a McDonald’s…Josh had been in the turning lane, however, when he saw the McDonald’s he got out of that lane and went through a light that was turning yellow to red to get there.

We ordered in the drive thru and I got a hot coffee to drink. I say hot coffee, because when I opened the lid to add my sweetener, I got HOT coffee all over my freaking lap. I couldn’t say or do anything except cry because it hurt so bad. Josh felt really bad for me.

I got everything sorted after that and we got onto the road around 11. We thought the drive to Greymouth was supposed to take 5 hours and we had a 4 pm brewery tour so it was good to get out of Christchurch by 11.

The drive out was bright and sunny and we were happy about that. We’re not big on the rain. We had a nice talk and a nice drive. We started heading into the mountains that had only been in the distance while we were in Christchurch.

The views were spectacular when we got into the valley of the mountains. We saw some rock formations that we’d never seen anywhere else. It was like the scene in The Princess Bride where Andre the Giant tries to kill the Dread Pirate Roberts. Very cool boulders. We would have liked to hike amongst them but we had our appointment to keep.

As we drove on through the mountains, we commented that this landscape was like the volcanic area on the central plateau area of the North Island where we did the Tongariro Crossing. Then, it changed to the rainforest area of the West Coast. There started to be waterfalls evident on the hills. Cool.

When we reached a place called “Devil’s Corner” we were like, with a name like that, we have to pull off here and have a look. What we saw below was the viaduct (a new road built over the river). Back on the road and on through to the West Coast drive where the landscape flattened out. Josh said that the drive wasn’t as bad as he thought it was going to be.

We drove up through Lake Brunner to reach Greymouth. The road sign read “Tourist Road” and Josh and I both said, “We’re tourists.” The fog and clouds were rolling in. We knew we reached a big town when we saw that Greymouth had a Warehouse and a McDonald’s. We arrived about an hour early for our Montieth's Brewery tour so we went to see what the I-site recommended.

It was so funny as Josh asked the lady what we could do in town. I heard her say there was a museum and also some arts and crafts shops. I had a laugh because I knew Josh wasn’t down for either of those activities. Ultimately, we decided to check our email and paid about $2 for 20 minutes or so.

Soon enough, it was time to go on our Monteith’s Brewery tour. Josh was feeling a bit down after checking the email because it brought up things about work and all that. He said not to let him check any work related emails in the future when we are on vacation. We went into the brewery to catch the tour.

We were about 10 minutes early so we browsed the gift shop around until tour time. Dougal was our guide and as it turned out, Josh and I were the only people on the 4 pm tour. Awesome!!! We checked out the brewery and it was pretty standard but cool. Then, we did the tasting of 6 different Monteith’s beers. Dougal explained the differences in the beers. Then, we got to serve ourselves from the taps. Josh kept his drinks small so he was straight to drive.

We really thought that Dougal did an amazing job with the tour and he himself knew that it was all about the service. He was trained to be a Maori teacher, however, he started working at the brewery 3 years ago.

The brewery tour was great, there is even a 6 pm tour that includes a BBQ dinner. Josh wondered why we hadn’t got booked in on that one instead. However, we had a drive out of Greymouth to Hokitika that's why we hadn't booked that tour. We were soon on our way to the Hokitika Shining Star hotel about a 45 minute drive away.

Josh thought this hotel was awesome. When we checked in, our rate included milk for our tea and coffee as well as a free movie rental to watch on the DVD player. The hotel is located beachfront, however, it was dark when we arrived. We could however, here the roar of the ocean although we couldn’t see it. I started getting afraid at the thought of a tsunami. Man, I have some crazy fears. The room was part of a duplex like log cabin and it contained a kitchette. I told Josh we should go check out the Glow Worms that were located across the street.

We drove to the Glow Worm Dell which literally was across the road from the hotel. It was so scary walking up the path in the dark. We didn’t have the cell phone for light or anything else for light so Josh held onto the rail as we wondered up the hill in the darkness. Man, all I could think of was if someone was out there in the woods waiting to get us. We saw the glow worms which was very cool and we could also see the stars above through a clearing in the trees. Then, we quickly made our way downhill and outta the woods into the light! Whew!

Next, we drove into town to see if there was a grocery store. There was a New World, so we bought some things to make burritos and headed back to the hotel to cook. We popped in the DVD Fun with Dick and Jane (the movie we had rented) while the burritos got ready.

The food was really good and I love having a kitchen to make meals in. I washed the dishes afterward since Josh had cooked. Then, we watched some television before finishing up the movie. Well, Josh finished up the movie because I was tired from poor sleep the night before (I’d had a couple of nightmares) and I fell asleep before the end of the show.