Tuesday, February 26, 2013

From the Commodore - Day 12

 Up at 7, showered, breakfast, made lunches and off by 10.  Stopped at Franz Joseph, the glacier further north and visited the isite (info centre) for details of what to see driving north.  I kept falling asleep in the car.  Too hot. 

Drove north and stopped in Harihari for dad to have a coffee and I had a boysenberry bar.  Very tasty.  Very cloudy once we left the valley. 

Stopped at Lake Ianthe for lunch which we’d packed.  Water in lake very warm and lots of people swimming there.  Drove on and stopped in Ross an old gold mining town.  Walked part of the trail but it’s over an hour long and it was hot and late and I wanted to get going so we could find a hostel room. 

Stopped in another community that is called the jade capital of NZ.  Saw how they cut the jade, polish it and bought some cute souvenirs for people.  Also found some colourful wool socks for myself in a sock museum across the road.  Had a long conversation with the man painting the souvenirs I bought and he warned me about the bridge to the north which is a one lane bridge (most of the bridges in this country are one lane, even the long ones) that also takes the train. 

We got ahead of the train and then went to cross the bridge and dad stalled the car right on the tracks!  A little flurry of excitement!  Got safely across ahead of the train then stopped on the roadside to call up different hostels.  The ones by the pancake rocks where we are going tomorrow were all booked up so we drove into Greymouth looking for the info centre and found a lovely hostel full of art work and got a room there. 

For $2 we washed a load of laundry, made dinner, hung the laundry to dry and dad got the pictures from my camera onto his spare hard drive as well as the computer.  After dinner we drove out to the point to see if we could see any dolphins (no luck) and watched the fishing boats coming in over the bar. 

While typing this addition I found my stupid watch battery has died and so I’m watchless again!  What a pain in the rump!  I think it’s bedtime. 

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