By Train to the West Coast

After the wedding festivities I stayed on in Christchurch for a few days. Denise and I took the Tranz Alpine over (or more accurately through) the Southern Alps to Greymouth on the West Coast.

 It’s a modern train, in fact the rolling stock was only delivered late last year. One of the nice touches is an open sided observation car although it was a bit chilly on the early morning run out of Christchurch.

Initially the track crosses the flat Canterbury plain, before hitting the foothills of the Southern Alps and climbing alongside the Waimakariri River as it cuts its way through the mountains. There are impressive views of the gorge and the viaducts as the train approaches them.

It has been an incredibly dry summer and the plains are in the rain shadow of the Alps so the ground was very brown.

The halfway point is Arthur’s Pass the highest point on the line at 737 metres.

After a brief stop there the line plunges into the Otira Tunnel, 8.5 Km with a 1 in 33 gradient. Out the other side, we stopped at Otira to let a coal train pass. These haul coal from the West Coast mines to Lyttelton for export. Each of the wagons holds 50 tonnes of coal. There are two locomotives at the head of the train and banking engines are needed to get the train through the tunnel.

Now being on the West Coast, the evidence of the higher rainfall was apparent. Although they had been officially declared a drought area having no significant rain since Christmas.

This is Lake Brunner, named after an early explorer

The line follows the Grey River down to the coast.

We arrived at Greymouth in time for a hearty lunch and then travelled up to Punakaiki where Noreen and I briefly stopped at last year.

The sea conditions were better this time for the blow holes to operate.

 If this is drought, imagine what it would be like in the wet season!

We stayed in the historic settlement of Blackball in the old hotel known as Formerly The Blackball Hilton. From Wikipaedia – It was founded in 1910 as the Dominion Hotel, renaming itself after the mine manager, after whom the town's main street is also named. It was forced to change its name after objections from the international hotel chain of the same name (boo hiss!).

As you can see it is not a heaving metropolis

but it does have the remains of its mine and the most fantails I have ever seen (Denise says this is because the sandfly population is extreme, and they seem to prefer her to other humans.)

Overnight the drought came to an end. There was quite a deluge, but nowhere near a record.

The next morning was damp and misty but we managed to have a good look round the old Brunner Mine.

And then it was time to return on the train to Christchurch and the next day back to Wellington and work.