Sunset at Greymouth
WILD
WEST
COAST
At Fox Glacier the clouds parted, the sun
came out, and by the time I’d had coffee
and a terrible pie, the weather was clear and
stinking hot. The weather bomb was behind
me and I was racing it up the Island. From
Fox I was in the groove, plugged into the T120
which was purring like a well-fed lion. Towns
passed. Franz Josef, the Okarito turnoff,
Whataroa, Harihari, and at Ross with four
kilometres left in the tank, I stopped. I was
suddenly tired. Gassed up, I rolled a few quiet
k’s to Hokitika. I went to the mouth of the
river at the western edge of town where two
waterways, and different coloured streams,
were fighting and resisting being mingled.
This is usually a great spot to cast a lure. For
forty minutes I tried. Nothing. I bought an ice
cream. And decided to push on to Greymouth.
Again the coast road was charming, but
a little more populated than the empty
southern roads had been. I had seen none
of the notorious campervan horrors, except
one, outside Whataroa, where a policeman
was remonstrating wildly with a bunch of
bewildered looking tourists. Their campervan
was on its left side, on the gravel, just beyond
the exit from the bridge. Flipped – god knows
how. No-one hurt apparently, and it didn’t
block the road - I went past. Not my problem
today.
At Greymouth I stopped and got a cabin for
the night. No cooking or ablution facilities, but
it was good to get the riding kit off, shower
and wander down to a revelatory beach
scene. Greymouth had always seemed to be
raining, windy, cold, sleety, and grim, on every
previous visit. But here was a tropical beach
scene, a sunset coming, and the looming
weather from the south bringing some
dramatic colour to the balmy evening.
I sat in a wooden bivvy on the beach, nearby
to twenty or thirty locals and campers, and
watched the same sun that I had seen rise
over a mountain pass, blaze orange down a
mutinous sky into a darkening, calm, evening
ocean.
Hell of a day. HELL of a day. Heaven-sent.
Still haven’t found a good meal in Greymouth,
nice people yes, but culinary excellence, no.
KIWI RIDER 29