Thursday November 1, 2012, 31 miles (50 km) – Total so far: 583 miles (938 km)

The early morning quickly turned to rain as we were getting ready to leave Punakaiki. So we put all our rain gear on and hoped it wouldn’t rain too hard. The west coast is known for torrential rains and we didn’t want to deal with that and traffic. The rain kept a steady pace as we rode out of town and into the rolling hills. The descents were a bit scary as the brakes were wet and a few times I strayed too far into the oncoming lane on the curves. We stopped in a small town of Runanga for a quick lunch and were surprised when Greymouth appeared so soon. It was only a 31 mile day but the rain made it seem longer. We found Global Village Backpackers which is a very cool hostel. I can’t believe all the great accommodations we have found. Each of these backpackers is so unique and the international people are fun to mingle with.

Tomorrow we will head to Hokitika which is known as the greenstone (jade)capital of New Zealand. After that we will bus the 100 km to Fox Glacier. Our bikes do not having a climbing gear as our bikes back home do so we decided that the several 1200 foot steep climbs on the way to Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers would end up with us walking a lot. We have climbed to 2500 feet but on a lower grade road. Along with that the forecast calls for rain the next several days – after all this is the “wet coast”.