It was still raining heavily when we set off. This ensured that we would not get a helicopter flight over the glaciers. Our first stop was Franz Joseph glacier. We saw the glacier from the car park as we did not have enough wet weather gear to attempt the two hour return walk.
The rain continued for the rest of our journey to Greymouth, but we arrived it did become intermittent. As we had nothing planned in advance we set about exploring the area from the car. We got lucky as we found the Monthiels brewery, that ha just opened that day. It was not running tours just yet, so we grabbed a light lunch.
A spot of shopping round the town was useful however did not yield a super rugby shirt that is high on Alan's agenda.
Following our shopping trip we returned to the brewery without the car & tried one of their sampling racks, (6 beers), as well as a couple of others we had not tried before.
Our accommodation for the evening I had booked through a website known as AirBnb. We were taking a room in someones home, as well as joining them for dinner & breakfast. I have booked three more of these through the website so was keen to see how it would turn out.
When we arrived we were shown to the sleep out which I had been aware of in advance. This contained a pool table as well as our two beds. This was very much someone's home, & made a lovely change to the standard hotel set-up we had been getting used to.
What made the stay great was the food, the hosts, & the other people staying. After 2weeks of just having each other to talk to this stay couldn't have come at a better time. We had some great conversations about NZ, & the world in general. Sitting down for a traditional Kiwi home cooked meal of lamb & gravy was just the tonic.
They have also given us a few things to see on our drive up north which shall prove very useful.