Day 13: A bit peaky

So far throughout this trip, we (and particularly Dan) has been waking up early. This morning, when we actually needed to be up and out really early was the one day when we both really wanted to lie in. Nothing to do with the night before. Certainly not.

We had tickets to take the TransAlpine Scenic train across the mountains from Christchurch to Greymouth which meant leaving the hotel at 7.15 to get to the train station.


On a side note, wandering around Christchurch yesterday, we saw the trams as they wove their way in and out of traffic and even into a shopping centre. Dan was taking the piss out of how safe this was. This morning, front page news on the local paper: Large door in the shopping centre closes into the side of the tram.


The views across the Southern Alps were fantastic, even though the weather wasn't _quite_ as good as it could have been. This did mean that the 'cloud geek' could get his rocks off on rare and unusual cloud formations. Dan is even more delighted to discover on looking this up on the internet that the formations are called Mammatus - literal translation: Mammary Glands.

We spent most of the journey there on the observation deck - an open sided carriage that means you get fantastic views, as well as first hand experience of the climate. Going through long tunnels is also quite interesting!

As we got over the mountains, the weather got progressively worse until we were left as the only people out there, along with a hardened French teacher from Sydney called Steven. We stayed out there chatting and appreciating the view until we arrived at the station.

Greymouth is one of those places that proves the point: you take this trip for the journey, not the destination.

A very quick lunch (the train only stopped there for about 45 minutes)and we embarked for the return journey.

We decided to celebrate the trip with some bubbles and Dan managed to score us an upgrade to the fancy-pants dining carriage. We settled into the comfortable chairs, ready for our 4.5 hour return to Christchurch.

Or so we thought.

There is an 8.5Km tunnel that connects the two sides of the mountain range, and as we sat at the stop just before this, we heard news that the radio link inside the tunnel was down. This would normally be OK, but the phone system crashed as well.
With luck, the station was also in a mobile phone black out area.

Without communications, we couldn't proceed through the tunnel. Engineers were drafted in and a fleet of buses were sent from Arthur's Pass up ahead ready to ferry us back to Christchurch.

The station was charming, in a slightly scary sort of "don't want to be here after dark when you can't see who's circling the train" kind of way.

Still a short 3 hour delay later, we are back on the move.
Strangely we don't bother with the observation deck this time, instead passing our time with innumerable games of rummy (it would be ungentlemenly of me to mention who might have won _slightly_ more games).

Back in Christchurch we had time to take in some swanky bars.

Tomorrow more around the city.