Greymouth
Our accommodation in Greymouth was in a private home, and provided a bed and breakfast. The owners if the home had renovated part of their home to provide a place for their son and his wife to live after they were first married, but they had now moved out of that home, into a house they had bought for themselves. This left a vacant space, which the owners thought they could let out to tourists and have an extra income.
Once we were settled into our rooms we asked if the owners could advise us of a place to have dinner, and we were directed to a “Pub.” This public house looked a little rundown from the outside, but once inside, things improved, it seemed that this place was indeed very popular, and once we had eaten, we could see why. The food was superb, so good we returned the following night.
In the morning, after the most satisfying breakfast I had ever eaten, we asked our hostess, Ellen, where we should visit and what we should see while we were in Greymouth, then we set off exploring for the day.
Our first point of interest was the entrance of the harbour, the mouth of the Grey River. The day was overcast and I could see the sea breaking on a shallow sandbar which ran across the entrance of the harbour, and then thought that this could be a dangerous harbour to enter if the conditions were not right!
I went to the breakwater and noticed a large rock that looked out of place, it had been set there by the local people as a memorial to the many people who had drowned while there boat was trying to cross the sandbar to enter the harbour in a storm!
Later that day after Carolann and my mother had been shopping (what female does not like shopping) I went to book our passage on the inter-island ferry for the three of us and our car, as I was informed it was better to do it now then wait till we reached Picton. When I arranged the time, the girl behind the counter at the booking agency, asked if I really wanted to arrive in Wellington at 4:30 pm? As that was in the peak traffic time, and she said, “I would NEVER travel at that time, because the roads are too busy.”
I asked her if she had ever been to Sydney in Australia, she answered that she had been there once, I then asked if Wellington peak hour was as busy as Sydney, “No.” she said, and no longer argued that I might feel uncomfortable driving in peak hour.
After leaving the booking agency with our tickets, we decided to that it would be nice to see what the “Sandy Beaches” on the west coast of New Zealand looked like, thinking they would not be much different to those I could see from my home!
The beaches I can see from my home in Sydney are covered in a fine clean almost white sand making them inviting to lay on, on a warm day anytime of the year, children play on them, running barefoot and building sandcastles. That is what I expected to see here, but I was soon to be disappointed
It was not a nice warm sunny day, in fact there was the beginning of a storm, so I did not expect to see anybody on the beach laying on the sand, but it was not the sea and the weather that were stopping people, it could have been the best summer’s day and I doubt I would have seen anyone laying on the sand! Because not only were there no people, there was no sand, just round stones the size of tennis balls and smaller! I could not imagine children running barefoot or building sandcastles on this beach EVER
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