Southward

We hitched a ride with Julian from Germany. He just graduated form high school. He worked for six weeks and made enough money to travel for six months. He bought a van for NZ$800 (US$500) that he sleeps in. That is quite common here. I really respect that so many kids pick up and leave their home country at the age of 18. He is traveling by himself and meets people along the way.

We made it from Nelson Lakes to the west coast city of Westport. Now we journey south. Westport was a coal mining town. It still is. Two nights was too many. Luckily they had a pool so we can start training for the tri season that we will be heavily involved in!

Keeping busy in a boring town.

Between the only two towns on the west coast is the not very exciting "pancake rocks". There we spent too much time looking at the rocks wondering what the appeal was. Then we hitched into Greymouth.

Me and the "pancake rocks".

Greymouth is another mining town. The town is pretty miserable. Again we found a pool. The best thing that happened there was that we ran into our old friend Avi that we met in Takaka. We had left him a couple of weeks ago. He was headed the same way as we were so he offered us a ride. Then he told us about a two day walk that was near the famous Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki.