May 20th and 21st - Greymouth and Franz Josef

A liberal estimate places the population of the entire west coast of the South Island around 32,000, making our first stop there, Greymouth, a comparatively bustling metropolis in comparison to anywhere else with its 13,500 residents. Our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook struggled to drum up much that was positive to say about the place but as it was a convenient stop on our long road to Southland we booked a 6pm tour at the one item of interest, the Monteith’s brewery tour. Unfortunately for the poor souls at Monteith’s, I had been to the Guinness factory not once but twice; the standard setter for brewery tours. Thus my apprehensiveness was warranted as I paid my $18 and was led through an empty bar and past the washrooms to the beginning of the tour. Where the Guinness factory had countless videos, recordings, and interactive displays, Monteith’s had a heavyset woman struggling to read notes she’d clearly been supplied from a soiled clipboard. The fact that the woman had never given the tour, or any tour for that matter, became increasingly clear as time went on, but her preparedness was irrelevant as anything she said was drowned out either by the hum of the machinery or by her own accord as she turned away from the tour group to speak. The saving grace came with the tastings at the end which proved that the brains behind the entire operation had been spending all their time making quality beer and not organizing sub-par tours. Casual drinking has become somewhat of a motif on our journey through New Zealand. It’s hard enough when there are so many breweries and wineries about that when you figure in how damn good everything tastes, it really is a recipe for disaster. Even drinks that I’d normally avoid back home are finding a place in my heart. The Monteith’s Black is a gift from the treasure vaults of Xerxes while the Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir put a stop to my wine racism; no more whites only for me. We have a giant bag that we use to carry our food from hostel to hostel that contains so much wine and beer that we probably appear to be severe alcoholics. Kelsey is in dire straits about how she is going to get all her booze back through customs. Anyways, after the tour and a stir fry dinner (with wine, obviously) we had a lovely night of Scrabble with a pair of Welshmen while the rain poured down outside. It’s easy to make friends when the hostel has musical instruments in its common room, I just play a little Fur Elise on the piano or solo along with a guitar to someone dabbling in Coldplay and good conversation starts. The next morning, in Hokitika on the way to the Franz Josef glacier, we picked up our first hitchhiker. Mike lives in the township at the foot of the glacier itself and was just coming back from a climbing trip in Nepal, in other words, a true kiwi outdoorsman. We tolerated the body odor coming from his travel gear because he was a delightful fellow full of character and local wisdom. Best of all, he was a big Fleet Foxes fan and we both whistled along when I put it on through the car stereo. Speaking of body odor, what is it with dorm rooms and overwhelming stink? We’ve mostly been staying in share rooms meaning that they have 3 or 4 beds, any more than 4 and they’re officially considered dorms. It seems there is some universal rule that once a room has more than 4 beds, the people who fill the beds must have terrible BO (other than us of course). Despite opening both windows upon check-in, the smell seems to have intensified considerably over a couple of hours, thus we find ourselves watching the Two Towers in the common room, waiting for the morning where we will actually get to climb the glacier (though we are heading to the Fox glacier, 25 clicks further south).