November 4, 2014 - KiwiRail, Arthur's Pass, Shantytown

Daily itinerary were:

• Boarded KiwiRail at 8:15AM
• Rode KiwiRail through Southern Alps
• Stopped at Arthur's Pass for photographing
• Arrived Greymouth Station at 10:55AM
• Lunch in Greymouth
• ShantyTown Heritage Park
• Dinner at Matheson Cafe Reflectionz
• Checked into Fox Glacier Hotel

This morning we got up earlier to board the KiwiRail train in Addington to take the TranzAlpine Scenic train tour from Christchurch to Greymouth.  The KiwiRail luxury train took us to across the fertile farmlands of the Canterbury Plains, to enjoy thrilling vistas over deep gorges, ice-fed Waimakarri River, and traverse the mighty Southern Alps with magnificent alpine landscape.

We drove through the Christchurch which is a beautiful town in the Canterbury region.  Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's 3rd most populous urban area.  It suffered through many earthquakes between 2010 and 2012, and the city is in a rebuild mode expecting 50,000 new houses in the Greater Christchurch area by 2028.  Between 9/4/2010 and 9/3/2012, there were 4,423 earthquakes above a magnitude 3.0 have been recorded in the Canterbury region.

The KiwiRail train has special designed seating configured in pairs around the table with non-tinted and non-reflective windows for photo taking.  They also have open air viewing carriage for further photo opportunities without glass at all.  Some of us stayed most of our time in the open air viewing carriage for taking pictures of the breathtaking scenery.  Vivian jokily told us that we should save some money by purchasing standing only tickets (we were not sit on our comfortable seat and just standing in the open air viewing carriage).  They also has GPS triggered audio commentary at-seat throughout the journey to provide tour guiding information.

The train stopped at the Arthur's Pass station to allow us to take some pictures with the ice-capped Southern Alps as backdrop.

After we got to Greymouth Station around 10:55AM, we took the bus ride to Greymouth for lunch.  Greymouth is the largest town in the west coast region in the South Island of New Zealand. The Greymouth urban area has an estimated population of 9,870 which is about 31% of the West Coast's inhabitants.  The town is located at the mouth of the Grey River on a narrow coastal plain close to the foot of the Southern Alps.  Maori had lived in Greymouth for considerable time before European settlement, and called the area Mawhera (for "wide spread river mouth") .  Greymouth has a history of coal and gold mining.  When the mining industry started to decline, forestry became a new staple industry.

There are variety of eateries for lunch in Greymouth.  Some of us chose to have self packed lunch on the seawall of the Grey River.  From the spot we could see the Cobden Bridge over the Grey River near its mouth.

After lunch we visited the nearby ShantyTown Heritage Park. It was constructed and opened in early 1970s.  It consists of 30 re-created historic buildings making up a 19th-century gold-mining town.  It is surrounded by native forest and is one of the top attractions in the region.   It has two main streets, a re-created narrow-gauge bush tram line that follows a 19th-century sawmill tram track, a "chinatown" area depicts the life and living environment of Chinese immigrant gold miners who had migrated to the West Coast in the 1860s from other gold fields in New Zealand as they ran dry, as well as directly from China. We also got an opportunity to pan for our own gold.  Most of us did get some small pieces of gold.

Then we went to Fox Glacier and had dinner at Matheson Cafe Reflectionnz.  It is a small cafe with spectacular view of the Mt Cook and Fox Glacier.  With large picture windows for us to view the magnificent Mt Cook, along with great meal (pumpkin soup, lamb and fish), it was the most remembered dinner we had on this whole trip.  While we were waiting for the dinner to be served, the weather had been changed from sunny to raining and hail.  It also had a beautiful rainbow displayed right in front of us between the gorgeous grassland and the ice-capped Mt Cook.  We all had to dash out to the patio for a lot of Kodak moments.