Pancake ROCKS!!!

Day 3 (28 Sept’09). Kid you not.

7.30am! And we are LATE!!!!!!!!!! Never happened to us before. ARGH!!!! Were we that tired? Must be lar, sigh….

The free shuttle arranged by the “Jail” was at 7.45am and we woke up at 7.30am, no bath for sure for us, luckily we’ve packed our luggage (semi packed). Phew! Rushed to the main road - we were early or perhaps the shuttle was late, Hahanah….. Doesn’t matter does it.

It was a 7 mins ride from our state prison (approximately 1500mtr), could have walked but with our “mammoth” of luggage and the rain (yup! Rained - our pic have the chance of not turning up well. Sigh…). The queue was fairly long must be the rain, everyone slept in (hahaaa…. don’t feel that bad anymore), we checked in and took our luggage to the rear of the train to be loaded. Oh! Maximum luggage weight is 20kg per bag of max 2 bag. No hand-carry except for a handbag/backpack (nope, no checking of hand-carry like the airport, I was thinking about this as well).

Oh yah! By the way, we were taking TranzAlpine train to the west coast of South Island, CHRISTCHURCH to GREYMOUTH. A 4 hour ride. The ride - FANTASTIC! Scenic route, good train guide, history well explained and there’s an open air deck (with natural aircon) for photographers. PERFECT.

The not-so-perfect part? The weather was GLOOOOOMY. Just my luck!

Our ride was a peaceful one but definitely not for the couple sitting in front of us, as us both GURLS running up and down as we heard the announcement of scenic spot ahead. Haahhaha….. Sorry guys! Pure tourist or should I sa pure KIASUISME!

Ah…… the gorges, river, mountains, creek, lakes and everything but everything is picture perfect and SERENE! A sight to behold. The pic might not do justice here - not professional maa…. But trust me, a trip must made by all and make sure its early summer or late spring. *WINK*WINK* Even if you don’t look good but at least your background looks good! Hahhaha….. *cheating*

The train did a few stop here and there to replenish their café fresh food, some of the stop I took the opportunity to get down to take some pics of these quaint little train station. Pretty interesting I must say.

The journey doesn’t felt that long since I have my darling iPod and PSP with me…. JOY! Money well spent. Spent 30mins watching Korea series “Boys Over Flower” but the panoramic scenery kept waving…. Calling….. “Come and take my pic”….. hahaha…. Excuses! Alas. Reached the station - Greymouth. Task - look for Hertz (we’ve booked a car you see, it’s a self-drive trip). FOUND! Got our car, off we head to our backpacker place.
OK! This is the beginning to an exciting day (and you thought the train journey was good, HAH! Wait till you here this). We’ve booked ourselves at NOAH’S ARK BACKPACKER, and I have to ask this to everyone, what was the first thing that cross your mind?… a hostel right ie plain hostel!?!. NOOOOO!!!!! It’s decorated with animal room - REALLY! I ran every corner to take pics of every room - those without guess ofcos. Zebra (my favourite), elephant (our room, Andrea abit concern we’ll get a piggy room, hahahaa….), pig, penguin, dog, leopard, bear, giraffe, monkey…. basically everything you can think of lar.

The garden, ah…. Heaven! They have kitchen (self-help), TV room, café/lounge, cute sharing toilet/bathroom etc. SWEET!!! I can write an entry just on this but lets not do that huh.

McDonald is across the street, KFC diagonally to it. Super mart is less then 1KM away, you can really walk actually. A quiet and peaceful town, you can take a stroll at the left bank all within walking distance to each other. The train station is next to the super mart. Everything is within your reach, no car required if you plan to stay here for a night or two. Excursions can be arranged by respective hostel. No worries about this part here.

Enough about the hostel, we then took a quick shower and head straight to PANCAKE ROCK!!! Hahahah….. You read it right, that is the name of the place, the rocks does look like a pancake due to the earth and volcanic evolution.

Linda at the tourist counter said it will take approximately 1 hour and 10 mins drive, I think we drove a little too fast or perhaps they thought we will be stopping along the way to take the beautiful pics - trust me, BEAUTIFUL! But we need to rush for daylight and sunset at Punakaiki - Pancake Rock. By the way, we did not speed this time - 80-90kmp. Moderate right?

Reached the place…. Awww……..*speechless*. AWESOME! 3rd best thing for today - the most unique site for us in this trip or at least for now (2nd day baru…. Macam real). It’s a 20 mins walk at the park, but I think we took slightly more then that (much more, more like it). CANTEK BABE! Layers and layers and layers of PANCAKE. Sun did come out when we depart Noah’s Ark earlier, we love you GOD (not that we don’t before). Our pics turn out great.

It was pic-taking overload. I took like few hundredssss of pic just at one sightseeing place. (1) Vain and (2) Kiasu. No other explanation. Need to rush back as we were worried to drive at night in foreign country and the fact that they don’t have street light, all cliff and sea. Hemm…. Must drive before the sun fully set but but but... not before we buy some souvenirs across the street. Got a postcard for Maira & Misha (must send tomorrow morning) and magnets for moi. We took few pics on our way back, and stop by the super mart to replenish our stock, didn’t get much - fruit juice, tomato/basil flavored cheese and some fruits. Drove back to our ark happily.

I guess PANCAKE does ROCK after all.