Finally the Magic Bus arrived in Greymouth New Zealand, which is apparently a necessary evil. I had only heard bad things about Greymouth and to avoid it if at all possible.
When we arrived at Greymouth and I was prepared for the worst. In all travellers accounts I’ve heard that Greymouth is the pit stain of the South Island. All the bus shuttles use it as an overnight stop on the coast and there is no other place to go but it’s not very pretty and there is nothing to do.
The Magic Bus dropped us off at Noah’s Ark hostel. The hostel itself is prety nice. It is a bit pricey at $23 a person. It seems they know they are the only game in town and with all the shuttles stopping there they have a steady round of people staying there. To its credit there is a huge kitchen if you needed to cook and all the rooms have animal themes which is kind of kitchy.
In my dorm there were four other travelers including Marie from France. She was in New Zealand on a working holiday visa but not doing so well. She couldn’t afford to travel with a bus company and I think was trying to hitch a ride. I felt very lucky that I was working and on holiday. New Zealand is a very expensive country to travel in and I was already feeling the pinch but knowing I had a good paying job to go back to helped ease things as I knew I would be able to pay it off.
The best part of Greymouth New Zealand is the $5 all-you-can-eat sausage BBQ at the Railway Tavern where all the locals go. It wasn’t like food in Auckland but the price was right. Marie and I met up with the women from the New Zealand vineyards tour and headed over to see what was going on.
Not much was going on at this place, it was definitely a locals bar in a small town. A typical tavern with old men drinking and watching sports I would not place this as my first choice for dinner. But the bright side was that the beer was really cheap, about $2.50 CDN for a drink, so I bought Marie and I draught remembering what it’s like to be broke and hoping that I’m never as poor as she is right now. I hoped that her luck would turn around and somehow she could find a way around the South Island or at least find a job so she could make some money.
The dinner was surprisingly good, I guess charcoal can make anything tasty and all of us stayed for the live band. It reminded me a bit of the Edge, a hole in the wall back home. The band tried to appeal to everyone with Bryan Adams and Joan Jett and no one dancing except some oddball guy. Things did start to get interesting when a a drunk lady brought her rhythmically-challenged but eager to please husband out to dance. She also decided that our table should dance so I actually got up for I love rock and roll.
The bar started really booming and we all had laughs when a drunk Kiwi guy decided he’s going to tell the two Scottish girls at our table what’s wrong with Scotland and how to fix it. His drunk bestie realized that the girls’ rolled eyes meant they should move on.
So maybe you don’t need to avoid Greymouth New Zealand, it’s nice for one night.
Photo (c) PhillipC - Creative Commons
