Today was an earlier wakeup (7AM) for us. We headed out to the train station 5 minutes down the road to catch the Trans-Alpine train from Christchurch on the Pacific Coast to Greymouth on the Tasman Sea Coast. Not too much to say other than this was a very worthwhile trip, we passed over some flat-lands, then climbed into the Southern Alps and then went through an 8½km tunnel to emerge on the West side of the Alps. The scenery was nothing new from what we had already seen, but it was great to see it with someone else driving
Going into the tunnel the weather was bright and sunny, coming out the other side it was dull and low cloud. We were delayed about thirty minutes arriving into Greymouth as the local thieves had been at work during the night stealing the copper wire that controlled the signalling! Below are some of the many photos we took.
PICTURES
View
- View
- Too Much Excitement for Lyn
- `
- The Train
From the Viaduct
The “Fence” on the last picture is actually a wind deflector, these are fitted to all the viaducts as the winds comingdown the valley’s are a danger to the trains crossing them
It was great to be able to sit back and spend all my time observing rather than partly observing and mostly driving.
On our return we decided to follow our new Friday night tradition of fish & chips with a beer. Disaster struck when we opened the fridge and found we were out of beer! Fish and chip is not the same with G&T; or should that be G&T is not the same with fish & chips!