The TransAlpine Railway

Chris dropped us off at the station the next morning to set off on the TransAlpine Railway which joins Christchurch on the East Coast with Greymouth on the West, travelling through the heart of the Southern Alps. It is hailed as one of the best train rides in the WORLD and according to our book the only thing that could spoil it is bad weather. We read this looking out on a grey sky with zero visibiilty in Christchurch - we really are bad luck weather gods! However, all Kiwis say that whatever the weather is doing on the East Coast, it will be doing the opposite on the West so we kept our fingers crossed! Thankfully the sky cleared to a brilliant blue just as we hit the Alps and we had amazing views for our 4 hour journey. The camera went into overdrive again - so rather than give you a blow by blow account of the views, check out artistic shots on the gallery: http://gallery.mac.com /guypattison

We arrived in Greymouth (which was indeed very grey!) and picked up our new set of wheels - a Toyota Rav 4. No longer could we pretend to be backpacking/campervan travellers as suddenly we were transformed into champagne travellers in a b*tching 4x4. Who are we trying to kid? We headed straight off down the West Coast to reach Franz Joseph Village by 6pm - the home of the massive 8km long glacier that we were off to climb the next day...