The Longest Swing Bridge In New Zealand
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2007
1
44
62
Trip End
Oct 02, 2007
What I did
Road Trip to the Buller Gorge!!!
Greymouth, South Island, New Zealand
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
The day began quite early we were up fed and ready by 9am, and so in the pouring rain that the West Coast is known for we headed for the train station that also housed the car rental place, once Hazel had signed all the paperwork we were ready to go, and so dashed out to the car as quick as we could, and got the heaters blowing. Once we were slightly more comfortable we started out, heading North towards Punakaiki and its amazing rock formations.
Honestly the drive to Punakaiki was really bleak the rain just kept on hammering us, and the wind was buffetting us all over the road, its a good job the roads aren't winding, oh wait they are! however as soon as we pulled into the roadside parking area at the entrance to where the pancake rocks are situated, the rain abatted and the sun came out of hiding - albeit only for about 10 minutes but that was long enough to get almost all the way around the track so that Hazel could get a look at what makes the place so special.
Even though I've been here a few times before, I still can't really fathom how the rocks at Punakaiki have come to be, they are truely a sight, lots of layers of rocks all stacked up on top of each other line the cliffs, looking like stacks of pancakes, although there is no syrup, sugar or lemon that I can see... as we were too early to see the blow holes doing their thing, we were pretty soon back in the car and on our way again.
We had a couple of other little stops on the way, one being the seal colony at Westport, which I had been to when I was travelling on the Magic Bus last year, there was a lot more seals there this time, lots of babies lounging about on the rocks and some really fat adult ones too. By this point we had finally outrun the rain, or it had rained itself out for the day, it was becoming pretty calm and getting slightly warmer too, now that we were away from the 'West Coast'.
Our other stop before we reached our destination was at Westport itself where we popped into the supermarket for snacks and had lunch at a little cafe on the main street - which was pretty quiet for the middle of the day, I had pie and chips, it was really nice, and they have this stuff called 'Chicken Salt' which is very like 'Chip Spice' from home.
Once back on the road we headed towards our final goal of the Buller Gorge Swingbridge, we did stop a few times on the way so we could get pictures of the gorge itself which was really pretty.
The Buller Gorge Swingbridge Adventure and Heritage Park as it is officially known is really tacky - the bridge itself is a scary affair and then when you get to the otherside there isn't that much to atually see, there are a few walking tracks that we did, but because it was so wet from the rain earllier it was just a mashy muddy path that we were following - I tell you its a good job that I wore my walking trainers! we only stayed at the place for about an hour though, it just wasn't all that great and we were both glad that we had only paid $5 to get in, you could pay more, but that was so you could do a zipline type thing back to the car park on the other side of the gorge, I stuck with walking back across the bridge, that was scary enough for me!
Once back in the car we decided to head back to Greymouth following the inland road, there are a few things to see on this route but when we got out of the car to take some pictures the car got stuck in the mud, so that put paid to any other stopping we may have wanted to do, we were both covered in mud when we got back to Greymouth and a shower was definatley in order!
I have changed my plans again, I am not heading to Nelson from here anymore, I am going to travel with Hazel for a little bit longer and head East with her, so tomorrow is going to be a day on the Tranzalpine train over to Christchurch.
I've had a really good day, which does go to show that you really can't plan everything out, the best days are unplanned - not that this was the best day - but you know what I mean
