Sometimes a hole in the wall can be fun

I am travelling through the South Island on the Magic Bus shuttle service. There are several of these companies that will pick you up and drop you off at different hostels and also help you book activities. Basically you just book the locations you want to go to and you can hop on and off whenever you want.

I was quite surprised how much I liked Magic Bus. All the girls from the wine tour were riding it. It's a pretty good group of people and very diverse in age. The nice thing about it is that they stop several times on your way from one location to the next so that you can take a look at some of the tourist things you would have missed. The driver is also very good pointing out things and telling you what to do/where to stay.

A few highlights on the way to Greymouth were Paparoa National Park and a 40 minute walk around Truman Track to see the coastline:

And Punakaiki where there were Pancake Rocks which weren't as impressive as the seal habitat. Unfortunately, like most animals, seals are often a color for camoflage so if you squint your eyes you can see them on the rocks. I'll need to crop this picture.

We arrived at Greymouth and I was prepared for the worst. In all travellers accounts I've heard that Greymouth is the pit stain of the South Island. All the shuttles use it as an overnight stop on the coast but it's a very ugly town with nothing to do.

The hostel, Noah's Ark is quite nice, there is a huge kitchen and all the rooms have animal themes. I stayed in a dorm room with 4 other people and met a girl from France, Marie, who has been here 5 months working on a holiday visa. She was trying to get a ride to Nelson because she was so broke she couldn't afford a shuttle.

The highlight of Greymouth is the $5 all-you-can-eat sausage BBQ at the Railway Tavern where all the locals go. Marie and I met up with the women from the wine tour and headed over to see what was going on.

Not much was going on. It was a typical tavern with old men drinking and watching sports. The beer was really cheap, about $2.50 CDN for a drink, so I bought Marie and I draught remembering what it's like to be broke and hoping that I'm never as poor as she is right now.

The dinner was surprisingly good, I guess charcoal can make anything tasty and we stayed for the band. It reminded me a bit of the Edge, a band playing Bryan Adams and Joan Jett and no one dancing except the crazy guy. It started to heat up once a drunk lady brought her rhythmically-challenged but eager to please husband out to dance. She also decided that our table should dance so I actually got up for I love rock and roll.

The best part was some drunk Kiwi guy decides he's going to tell the two Scottish girls what's wrong with Scotland and how to fix it, except he kept getting them mixed up with the Irish but he knew what was wrong with them too - or so he thought. His equally inebriated friend was bright enough to interpret that the girls' rolled eyes and looks of disdain and carried him away to go to another bar.

All in all I think it was the best night you could possibly have in Greymouth.