Today I got up at 6am and caught the 7.15 bus to Greymouth. I had a stopover in Richmond but that was easy. The route between Richmond and Greymouth is the most beautiful road I have ever been on. It's absolutely amazing. At some point it crossed my mind that I would rather sit on that bus for the next 3 days than get off it. I sat staring out of the windows at the scenery rolling by like a little child. First the yellowy rolling hills like the ones near Motueka with the orchards and vineyards, then higher hills with more trees on either side of the road. These hills rose into low mountains and were completely covered by thick forest. Suddenly the ground fell away on my side of the bus and we were driving along the edge of a fjord. Far below the road was a turquoise blue gushing river with pebbly banks. The road twisted and turned, all the while following the river. It followed it for about an hour and a half. Up, down, sharp right, slight left turn, it was breath-taking. So cool. And every now and then a valley with a stream feeding the main river appeared and a view of the two valleys could be seen. I mean, I'm now reading Lord of the Rings and the hobbits are on the run in forests like that and suddenly I understand the beauty of them. Now, I'm not going all fantasy or whatever, but I understand why writers can fill pages and pages with descriptions of the landscapes. I could do the same but I'll spare you the boredom of reading that. You'll just have to come down here and se for yourself what I'm on about. You've probably already noticed how I am having trouble properly describing how I felt about the scenery. Just take it from me, I've never been somewhere this beautiful. The scenery changed every quarter of an hour or so keeping me entranced for the entire journey, even though it was cloudy and rainy. I got off in Greymouth which was, well, grey. The water of the Grey River was grey (as one would expect, I suppose), the sky was grey, the buildings were grey, the train was grey, all was grey. And I had to walk for half an hour with my freaking backpack to get to the hostel again. Bother. I was in a bad mood. I wanted to stay on the nice warm bus with the beautiful landscapes and all that. Bother. Anyway. I slowly but surely made my way to the hostel and that cheered me up because it's all African and Asian style so all colourful and there are masks and ornaments everywhere and flags (like the Swaziland one, Jas!) and patterns and all that kind of stuff. It's really nice. In my room there are 2 other Dutch girls, one from Utrecht (yay!) and 2 Israeli girls and one girl we haven't met yet. It's warm and cosy but I got top bunk (such a bad afternoon xD) but oh well. To get rid of my mood I took out one of the free bikes and mountain-biked to the pier and back in a big loop. It did clear my head but also made me hate mountainbikes even more than I already did. You have to sit so far for over and because they all have mountainbikes here you have to cycle on pebbly paths which is hard and the hard uncomfortable saddle makes that worse and you have to wear a helmet by law which made me feel stupid and made my hair stick to the velcro and ugh. It's not nice for your back or buttocks or hair. But whatever. That was my exercise for the day. Yay. Now off to bed.