Train Journeys

On the train
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Greymouth - Christchurch via Arthur's Pass

We bought a 7 day rail pass so we could journey back to Auckland via some world famous train lines. We first caught a  train to Greymouth where we had lunch before backing our tracks back to Arthur's Pass National Park. It was meant to be one of the most beautiful train journeys in the world. We started off going over the canterbury plains , which is made up of the sediment that has been carried by the glaciers from the Southern Alps and then dumped.  Then we slowly climbed up to the mountains, passing spectacular views of gorges, rivers, forests and the mountains themselves.

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We got off at Arthur's Pass where we went on a few short walks.  We were lucky to see the mountains as the previous few days had been rainy and cloudy (apparently we had colder and wetter weather than the UK!!).  We went on a walk up one of the sides of a mountain where we had great views of the valley north of Arthur's Pass.  We then climbed a lot of stairs to reach Devil's Punchball Waterfall before catching the train back to Christchurch.

Christchurch - Kaikoura

On the train to Arthurs Pass
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The next day we caught the train to Kaikoura, where we got stunning views of the coast line on one side and the mountains on the other.  The train goes along some stretches that are inaccessible by car.  We also passed salt plains, which were an impressive pink colour.

Kaikoura is the place to go whale watching...but decided not to bother, as we had both been before!  We really enjoyed pottering about the town... we  went shopping...we found an amazing cafe which baked very yummy cakes....and had a very nice glass of wine with an interesting french lady we had met previously in Arthur's Pass.

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Kaikoura - Wellington

We caught the train up to Picton before catching the ferry to Wellington, where Tony very kindly came to pick us up from the station (check out all the stuff we were carrying!!  Thank you Tony)  Although in return for the lift we had to shift all this smelly garden waste to a skip outside the house...well we volunteered and it was quite good fun throwing it over the fence into the skip!

We loved Wellinton and staying at Tony and Megan's so much we extended the one night we were going to stay, to three!  We spent our time visiting our favourite cafe's, visiting Freak Street(as Tony calls it) aka Cuba Street to the rest of Wellington.  On Cuba Street we saw the bucket fountain and even avoided getting drenched by it.  We also had a night out and even went for a boogie...yipee!!  It was good fun and we sort of went for a dance crawl (instead of a pub crawl) as we visited about 5/6 bars and clubs, and had a dance in each!  Tony you should put on your dancing shoes more often!  We once again had a brilliant time in the capital and were very sad to leave...Thank you Tony and Megan for making us feel so welcome.