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The Tranzalpine and Hokitika 2016 |
What's covered?
Today we left Canberra and flew to Christchurch for the start of the New Zealand part of our tour.
26 October
The drive to Sydney Airport took less time than we had thought and we came to the slip road before we had a chance to refuel the car so we had to car hire company rates to fill it up.
On the way we stopped at Goulburn for coffeee and lunch at Picton where we went to Cafe Book, a second hand book shop and cafe in one!
Our flight was thirty minutes late leaving but it arrived in Christchurch on time. A taxi got us to the hotel just after midnight and we had to be up a 6am for the The Tranzalpine Express to Greymouth!
27 October
Up at 6am, breakfast at 7am and taxi to the station at 7.10am!
We were very lucky with the weather as this beautiful trip on the Tranzalpine across South Island to Greymouth was through some wonderful country.
Avis offered us a Toyota Rav4 4WD which was fine for our luggage. It has quite a few marks on it but two members of stafff looked at it and said they were all within their fair wear and tear tolerances. Later I learned how Avis assess marks and they do indeed have a reasonable policy.
Hokitika was a short drive from Greymouth so we had time to have a little walk around. Our room was opposite the Tasman Sea and we had a wonderful view. We had dinner at the hotel and as it was far from busy we were able to chat with the waitress (Ann) who gave us useful information about our onward journey. Whitebait is a speciality of the area but it was not cooked as it is in England where it has a lightly seasoned crunchy coating. Instead it as done in egg and we thought it didn't work as well.
Photos
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From our hotel room in Hokitika
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