Travel Day

Today I travel to Greymouth from Marahau. My bus was scheduled to leave at 8:15AM. It was really a van. We then stopped in Moteuka. The driver said - we have to pick up a few people here so it may get a bit tight. However, math must not be a prerequisite for bus drivers or bus administration because there were more people than would fit in the van and the driver told two people to get off. One lady did. I think that she was transferred to another company's bus. The other guy refused to get off. He said he had booked his ticket three days ago. This caused the driver much aggravation. Eventually she called her office and said that she was leaving and not picking up another person that she was supposed to pick up. I was pretty glad that I got on the bus early so that I didn't encounter any of these issues.

I had a layover in Nelson. Two nice people agreed to watch my luggage for me as I ran down the street to pick up some groceries. I also stopped by a camping store intending on buying a couple of things but I almost had a heart attack over the prices so I didn't buy anything.

I also talked to the train ticket people who told me to call the Tranzscenic company for a refund. (Note: the Tranzscenic company told me to call these other people. Later I called Tranzscenic again and they told me to email the refunds office. I did this but as yet have had no reply.).

The bus trip up to Greymouth was really, really pretty. The Buller River is an amazing color - kind of emerald. I didn't get any pictures because the bus didn't stop. The West Coast was also pretty but looked very similar to the California west coast.

Not much to say about Greymouth. I had hoped to look for some Christmas/ birthday presents here but everything was closed when I got in. There was a really big grocery store so I picked up some more stuff and made myself dinner.

The backpacker was large and a bus load of people from the Magic Bus were there. At around 2am one of them must have gotten locked out and was yelling and banging on some door somewhere. A kind soul got up and helped him. (Not me). A good point about it was that it didn't have bunk beds.