West coast driving

The rain just kept coming...even the next day when we started heading towards the west coast to drive up to Greymouth to cut over they Arthurs Pass to Christchurch. Our first stop was to be the Franz Josef Glacier but since it downpoured, we decided to stay overnight and hope that the next morning it would clear up enough for us to walk to the glacier.

And it did! So glad we stayed overnight because that was definitely only of the highlights of New Zealand for both Don and I. The weirdest part was that for a portion of the walk to get closer to the glacier, we were walking through a sub-tropical rainforest...how does a glacier stay a glacier in that kind of climate? I should probably look it up on Wikipedia or some other more reputable research sight but I'm a bit afraid it'll blow my mind too much.

We became friends, me and the parks officer

This baby blew my mind 

Don is a genius behind the camera lens

We continued our way up the west coast...it would have been nice to have more time there, but we were running out of time! Our next stop was Greymouth. Back in Queenstown, I had picked up a brochure for a hostel in Greymouth called Global Village, good move on my part because it ended up being the cleaned, coolest, and most welcoming hostel we had stayed at during our entire trip. If you're ever in Greymouth, stay at Global Village...definitely worth it!

Our first night in Greymouth, we drove out to watch the sunset at a beautiful point and also stopped by a brilliant glowworm dell on our way back to the hostel.

It looks like we were photoshopped in...I promise, we were actually there

I think it made us both a wee bit homesick...these were the kinds of magnificent sunsets we always watched at Point Judith in Narragansett. Haven't seen as many brilliant sunsets since traveling.

See those little dots of light? Those are glowworms and after a lot of tries, Don was able to photograph them

Remember my post from back in Waitomo? Well that was like this but there were millions instead of just a few dots like you see in this picture.

During the day we spent in the Greymouth area, we drove out to Punakaiki, where the Pancake Rocks are located, which ended up being much cooler than we expected. Later that afternoon, we took a tour at Monteith's Brewery...our first ever brewery tour, which came along with a load of tastings! Monteith's is one of the biggest breweries in New Zealand, headquartered in Greymouth.

At high tide, the water comes pouring into the rocks, this gif shows a little of it

They are called the Pancake Rocks because they look like stacks of pancakes.

Later in the day...I tried my hand at bartending. I'm a natural.

Beer filling machine to fill the bottles

And then I became a bartender at Monteith's Brewery. Does anyone else think I look stunning in a giant orange vest?!