Yesterday saaw our arrivial at Greymouth and some idea of the natural problems that have beset Greymouth over the years.

In order to gain a better understanding I walked the main Street until a local approached me and wanted to ask "Äre you the motorcycle riders who parked at the end of the street."

Greg was also a rider (BMW R60/5) who had been at the Burt Munroe Challenge. So as he has lived all his life in Greymouth who better to ask.

He left High School at 16 and commenced work at the local brewery (one of two in Greymouth) and left at age 62 on a redunacy cash settlement.

He showed us where in the main street he was waist deep in water durng one of the floods prior to the levee bank construction.

He remembers well the tornado as his house was clos to where it first chaanged from a water spout into a land based tornado. He was working that day and heard a rushing sound and stepped outside

He saw a very dark sky and a lot of debris in the sky so closed the factory door and sat it out.

After the torando passed he recalled one of the young guys going to the car park to check on his almost new car. He returned stating ït's gone"it was only later that day that it was found trashed upside down in the Grey River some 500m away. Greg also pinted out a large red building just off the main street saying the whole front section disappeared.

Later after work he went home to find the neighbours house had been destroyed while his suffered almost no damage. He also pointed to the escarpment at the back of Greymouth and recalled how it was almost a natural barrier as the tornado followed it around and back towards the ocean.

At lunchtime we were sitting in the local when a couple of American's who were returning from duty in Antartica came and sat with us and we discussed emergency service provisions in that harsh environment as both worked in Emergency Services the conversation also swung around to the Murchison area as it is earthquake prone.

We had not being able to get a motel in Nelso so opted for one listed as being 5kms away. Well I should have checked personally as Hotels.com are known to be a little liberal in their distances. I turned north off SH6 to go to Motueka only to see the distance as 56kms! Well luckly for us it was already calculated into the days distance and the day was still young and soon the scenery changed into Hop's growing farms one after the other.

Our motel cabin was actually park of a holiday park with a Spa and swimming pool, kitchen.free BBQ, washing facilities etc so we were not put off and the lady looked out and said "ÿou on them motorbikes?", then before I could reply she said "changing you to a different room now I know you are motorcyclists".

Lucky for us it was to our advantage as she gave us a cabin with our own parking at the front door (rather then in the communial carpark) and we also had our own deck with table and chairs and all next door to the facilities like the pool.

That night Laura and I decided to go out for dinner at the local RSL only two blocks away but upon arrivial unless you wnted to play Bingo forget it. We walked down towards the main part of town when a sign took our immediate interest but the building it was attached too had the windows almost covered up. We took note of a hand written sign saying use the side door and peered into the gloom.

Our eyes widen as we saw not one but four Yamaha TZ racers sitting next to two classic unrestored early Kawasaki motorbikes. Closer peering showing that one of the TZ's was infact the Holy Grail a TZ750.

We looked again after dinner and on leaving the next morning we found an early Suzuki T350 and an early AP50 Suzuki but no indications as to ownership and despite it being 8.30am no one came to open up so we rode off back into wine country.

The city of Nelson is still in the news due to the evacuation of residents with bushfires. We walked the streets and rode back out and saw nothing of the fires despite that night the TV again showing mobilisation of a large group of firefighters.

We did enjoy the main part of Nelson with many buildings dating back into the late 1800's like the Womens & Men's clubs (seperate of course).

The New Zealand wine industry is based in the Northern part of the South Island in a mega fashion with on farm storages often of hundred's of thousand's litres of wines.

As we turned South towards the coast we witnessed masive road reconstructions where the road had slipped into the ocean only metres away with landslips from the ever present mountains which in places had their first coatings of fresh snows. Our overnight stop at Kaikoura has the ocean on one side and behind our motel the mountains resplendent in fresh powder snows and the wind is rattling the winds or is that the heaters working full time?