Greymouth: A Retrospective*

*Alternate title: "You're a Blowhole"

The author, looking back at Greymouth.

Thought of the day: what if superheroes don't wear capes for dramatic or aerodynamic effect, but to cover their butt? If I was trotting around in skintight Lycra I'd be wearing a cape too. Which makes you wonder about capeless superheroes, doesn't it. Aren't you getting enough attention already with the crimefighting and jumping off tall buildings? Do we really need to see your bum*, Spiderman?

Anyway, now that's out of the way, some photos from my weekend in Greymouth:

We left Christchurch on a particularly postcardish day,


then took a brief detour to return the Ring to the fires of Mt Doom,


then after that we stopped for a cup of tea and saw a few kea, which are New Zealand parrots. They're friendly and notorious for eating the rubber off your car windows, and biting your finger.



Then we arrived in Greymouth and it looked like this,


but the rest of Greymouth wasn't very photogenic so I took a photo of the sunset,


and a photo of the sunset with a bird,

then went back to the backpackers we were staying in and had an argument with a South African, he was kind of right but I won by default because he had a tattoo of a springbok over his heart and once that happens, you can never win an argument again.

The next day, we walked through the scenic bush

and got to the beach:

The above super-scenic photo is taken near the Pancake Rocks, which we went to at precisely the wrong time of day to take any nice pictures of the rocks themselves. They did look like pancakes though. There were also blowholes.

I didn't get any photos of these either, but did manage to amuse myself by calling everyone a blowhole.

*Actually, it turns out we might. Am considering running an in-blog 'best bum' contest. Will let you know more once I've nutted out the details, but I'd like you all to consider entering your bum. (Not like that.)